


Hyper Danganronpa

by Kittymonk



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fan Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa), Gen, Minor Spoilers, Murder Mystery, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original setting, POV Original Character, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-05-09 22:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 77,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14724867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittymonk/pseuds/Kittymonk
Summary: After dreaming of a mysterious bus ride leading up a steep mountain, Yuuta Teshima wakes up in a strangely-expansive rehab center with a collection of fifteen other ultra-talented students who claim to have received the same invitations to Hope's Peak Academy as he did. The mysteries about Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center continue to pile up until a certain cartoon bear arrives to announce the mutual killing game that he has planned for them. And as hard as they may try to resist the temptations of despair, it seems that they can never escape this Rehabilitation Program of Mutual Killing...





	1. Prologue (Part One)

PROLOGUE--BEGINNING

It all began when I felt my head bounce against a cool glossy surface, waking me from my rest. In some far off place, I heard rumbling and a steady whirring noise. Every muscle in my body seemed to ache to the point where moving in the slightest made me cringe. My brain felt like cotton in my head, my body lighter than air and my surroundings fluffy and dreamlike.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and saw that I was sitting in some sort of shuttle going up a bumpy, unmarked road. The white morning light outside was so blinding that it was difficult to tell where I was. On my person, I could perceive, was the blazer from a prestigious school that I didn’t recognize. Before I could make much of the situation, however, my eyes drifted shut again. My mind escaped me, slipping through my fingers and into the depths of sleep.

That was my last memory before I woke up in the hellish place that would soon become my prison. It almost felt too ethereal to be real life, but I knew that that bus ride was anything but a dream. It was the only memory I was allowed to keep before darkness…no, despair…overtook everything else.

 

The first feeling of reality I experienced came when I woke up in a sterile white bedroom. Morning light shone through the single window over my bed, reflecting off of the color of the bedroom to hurt my eyes. I could hear birds chirping happily outside, evidence of the early hour of the morning, and there was a freshly-cut daffodil sitting in a vase by my bed. I moaned with some irritation, rolling out of bed and rubbing my eyes in an attempt to wipe out the overwhelming whiteness that surrounded me. I at once realized that I didn’t recognize my surroundings at all, but that I seemed to be in a bedroom of sorts. The bed I woke up in was pressed flush against a wall with a window overtop of it, but I could also see a plain white desk and a wardrobe in the left and right corners of the room, respectively. I couldn’t help but give a suspicious look to the digital clock and powered-off monitor hanging above the doorway opposite to my bed. By this point, questions began surging through my mind; where was I? What sort of situation had I found myself in?

To begin my search for clues, I opened every drawer in the desk to very little success. Next, I opened the wardrobe to find a strange collection of clothing items—multiple copies of the same green jacket I used to wear in junior high school, short-sleeved white dress shirts, and gray pants hung on hangers behind the wardrobe’s doors, and a pile of unmentionables was folded in an almost-loving manner in the wardrobe’s drawer. More interesting, though, was the glimpse I caught of myself in the mirror bolted to the inside.

I’d only rarely seen myself looking so shabby before—and never wearing such a strange outfit. It was the very same outfit that repeated itself so many times in my wardrobe, along with a red scarf that I hadn’t worn since I was in kindergarten. My hair was an absolute mess, but that wasn’t any different from how I normally wore it. But when had I changed into such unusual clothes? My last memory saw me wearing an expensive-looking blazer, ironed slacks, and an embroidered tie. Why would I have abandoned an outfit like that to change into clothes that I hadn’t worn since I was much younger?

Looking at myself like this, I suddenly felt like a character in one of those movies that I used to watch with my mom when I was younger—waking up in a strange place wearing strange things with a fragmented memory. I don’t know why I had the sudden urge to make sure that I knew myself in that moment, but I touched the palm of my hand to my mirror as if I were shaking hands with my reflection and watched carefully as my mouth moved. It didn’t take me long for me to decide that I had my memory. “I’m...Yuuta Teshima,” I said to my reflection, letting him repeat after me. My voice sounded unfamiliar to my ears—almost unnaturally light and high compared to what I was expecting, but all I could do was narrow my brows and continue speaking. “Yuuta...Teshima. That’s my name.” I kept repeating personal information to myself in the mirror like this, almost as if I was trying to remind myself of my memories, before growing self-conscious. In that day and age, there were cameras everywhere—it wasn’t outlandish to think that someone could have been watching me and laughing as they saw me pretending to be one of those Byronic, amnesiac main characters who need help remembering their own names, so I decided to stop giving them fodder and get serious again.

I discovered a bathroom door standing in the wall adjacent to the door that seemed to lead outside, but to my dismay, the water didn’t seem to be turned on at the moment. I frowned at myself in this mirror as well, observing the lines and sweat on my face. How long was I lying on that bed? What season was it? Why couldn’t I remember the date anymore?

Finally, it seemed as if there was no other place to inspect except for the door which seemed to lead out of this bedroom. A moment of apprehension passed before I was able to steel myself for whatever I had the chance of seeing when I opened the door. To my relief, instead of a dangerous situation, I entered into a hallway lined with white doors looking identical to the one leading to the room I’d woken up in. Each door going down the hallway to my left was labeled with words written in English that I didn’t have the energy to attempt to understand in the moment, but luckily I seemed to be near the beginning of this hallway rather than the tail end which turned off to the right. Upon trying to open a door, I found that it was locked and assumed the same of the other doors going down the hall. “Well...no way to go but right,” I decided aloud, heading down the hall to my right until I reached a new location.

In the center of the new, expansive room was an intricate design impressed upon the floor. Exotic potted plants flanked the door that lead outside and the staircases that lead to a balcony that overlooked everything in the room. A metallic door on the balcony clashed hideously with the white wallpaper. There was a large set of double doors between the twin stairs which I almost missed because of its location in the shadow of the balcony, but they didn’t look very inviting. Four marble pillars attached to the ceiling made the room look like something out of a Greek myth. A large chandelier made of huge crystals hung from the intricate designs on the ceiling. It was all beautiful, certainly, but the emptiness of it all was crushing. Was I the only person here? But why?

When I was about to call out to whoever may be in this building with me, I turned to see a large door leading out to what seemed like the outside world  flanked with enormous windows that almost touched the ceiling. The windows displayed a clear blue sky, almost unrealistically green grass, and a scattered garden with several more foreign trees and intricate flowers planted about. I found myself staring in wonder outside, wondering how I managed to get to such a beautiful place without realizing. Seeing all of these plants in full bloom did very little to tell me what season it may have been, but I knew that I’d never seen a setting as beautiful as this one in my life.

“You’re not planning to stare outside all day, are you?”

My nerves jolted when I heard a sudden voice behind me. I spun around expecting to see some kidnapper with a gun, but I was instead met with a boy wearing a strange button-up black jacket with a sun on its lapel whose head covered with a seemingly-unattached gray hood. I could see what he wanted to hide underneath; his hair had definitely been dyed a long time ago, as his tawny brown hair had quickly outgrown his blond tips to make for a strange-looking gradient in his long locks. Looking up into his face gave me a very odd feeling of déjà vu that made my spine tingle, especially when I realized the disdain in his narrowed gold eyes. I faltered briefly, unsure of what I should say to this boy. “U-Um….”

“Even if you’re too focused on your own curiosity to bother looking at the big picture, at least this is a positive sign. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here anymore.” There was something intoxicating about the smooth sound of his voice, but I couldn’t place what it was. He spoke like speaking was an art, his fluent tongue underscored by a subliminal authority to his naturally dark tone. While not necessarily deep or intimidating, it still managed to put me on edge somehow as I bit my lip in an attempt to think of a proper response.

I could only find one question that begged to be answered. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t remember ever being here, do you?” His eyes went to the balcony, his furrowed brows suggesting that he was deep in thought. “…It’s an issue that I face, as well. And if you’re here, then that means that the rest of our class is probably here. And if _they’re_ here, then they need our help. But instead, you’re choosing to spend your time gawking at trees. How fittingly selfish of you….”

“H-Hey, you can’t say those sorts of things. We haven’t even introduced ourselves yet. I don’t even know who you are.” I meant to sound authoritative, but the hesitation in my voice didn’t do anything to affect the aloof expression on the boy’s face.

“You don’t know because you were too self-centered to ask. I’m Akira Igarashi.” I was only more annoyed when I saw him cross his arms and turn away from me. “You remember Hope’s Peak Academy, right?”

The words were unfamiliar to me—I’d never heard of such an academy before. The words seemed to beat away the walls in my mind blocking my memory, though, as I faintly recalled finding an acceptance letter in my kitchen. The memory was paired with considerable confusion—“Where did this come from? Why haven’t I heard of this place before?”—but the information I had was still sufficient enough to answer his question. “Yeah...I think I got invited there.”

“Good for you. Everyone here shares the same distinguishment. I only wanted to tell you my title,” Igarashi said dismissively. “I was gifted the title of Super High School Level Good Luck. You know what that entails, of course.”

I had to pause and give Igarashi a baffled look. “...No, I don’t.”

“You claim to remember Hope’s Peak, and yet you don’t remember their ‘Good Luck’ program? Maybe this situation is direr than I thought.” Even if Igarashi’s words implied concern, his expression didn’t become any less annoyed. “Each year, one random high school student in Japan is chosen to be enrolled in Hope’s Peak as a sort of experiment to compare those with talent to those ‘without’ it. For your graduating class, _I_ am that lucky student.”

Even knowing this, though, it was hard to see how Igarashi could be a random high school student. His religious-looking attire that would make LARPers blush and the cold look in his eyes would suggest that he was some sort of monk instead—or at least that he had a more specialized talent. Instead, it seemed as if he was just a lucky person from a strange place...though I had trouble imagining that he ever sat in a high school classroom when he was dressed like _that_.  

“Well...I’m Yuuta Teshima,” I greeted him in return, my voice steady. Already I could feel tension building a thick wall between the both of us. It was clear from his tone and the way he held himself that he wasn’t enjoying my company and I was getting irritated by his detached way of speaking, so it was hard to continue being polite. Though the question of why he felt the need to treat me so unfairly burned a hole in my chest, I forced myself to say, “Even if I’m not really sure what’s going on here...It’s nice to meet you, Igarashi.” I tried to find more to say, and in my efforts, I reflected back on what Igarashi said. So he was the SHSL Good Luck? If he had a ‘title’, then did I have one as well? I could only remember being an average high school student before I got that letter and ended up in this mystery location—I wasn’t any more or less talented than anyone else. I don’t know what made me consider such a nonsensical idea, but in a moment of impulse, I decided that there was a chance Igarashi might know since he recalled his so easily. “And I don’t remember much about this ‘Hope’s Peak Academy’ that you’re talking about, so if I have a title, then I can’t remember it right now. I’m sorry.”

I immediately regretted my decision when I saw a smirk grow on Igarashi’s face. “Your talent is ‘reformation’. You’re the SHSL Reformer. You can’t even remember _that_ much? I can only hope that no one else is experiencing memory loss to the same extent as you. Yours appears to be much more… _all-embracing_ than mine. That _could_ be explained away by your idiocy, though.”

My talent was ‘reformation’? I was the SHSL Reformer? But what did any of that mean? If I was given such an important-sounding title by a high school as prestigious as Igarashi made this ‘Hope’s Peak Academy’ out to be, then why couldn’t I remember it? Why couldn’t I remember what I did to earn it? I was just a normal high school student, as far as I could recall—unless I did something notably reform-y and forgot about it, then…

“Anyway, I digress. I counted all of the doors in that hallway and found sixteen, all labeled with names belonging to the students in our class…probably.” Igarashi’s sudden words stole me away from my thoughts.  “That means that there are fourteen other people in the facility that are due to wander out here in the same disoriented state that you did within the next few minutes. As such, I think that you should go back to your room and mind your own business. In a mysterious situation like this, I’m sure that the last person they want to speak to is a confusing person who doesn’t know how to conduct himself in a casual discussion. I’m very talented in the ways of conversation, as you can probably tell. So if you have any sense, you’ll leave the introductions to me. Go get some rest and come back later. _Then_ you can try this whole ‘having a casual conversation’ thing over again and avoid confusing our poor classmates any further.”

 _“How haughty do you have to be to say something like that?”_ I questioned in my mind. _“And if he’s planning on greeting everyone else like he greeted me, then I feel sorry for them. I’m not sure if I can trust this guy to be nice to_ anyone _….”_ “Well, alright…if you’re as much of an amazing conversationalist as you say you are, then I trust you to take care of everyone. B-But before I go back to my room, can you please tell me more about this ‘Hope’s Peak Academy’ you keep bringing up?”

He chuckled a bit, but the sneer on his face made it obvious that he meant to demean me. “Now’s not the time for that—and I don’t need or appreciate your trust. Just carry on back to your room and leave me alone.”

“Okay. Good luck…though I guess you don’t need it, considering your...talent.” Awkwardly trying to smile at Igarashi as he glared daggers at me, I shuffled backwards out of the foyer and escaped back to my room. I was more relieved than ever when I finally closed the door behind me to see the sterile white room I’d begun in. The image of this room paired with my memory of the foyer outside gave me a deeply tranquil feeling that I couldn’t place. Even if the circumstances were mysterious, I felt extremely comfy and calm being in such a serene place as this. There was only really one really pressing question…where was I?

It took me a while to recognize my own exhaustion as I unwittingly dozed off on my bed after ten minutes of waiting under Igarashi’s instruction. I hadn’t felt tired before, but speaking to a person as thoroughly unpleasant as Akira Igarashi was seemed to have drained all of the energy out of my body.

 

I awoke nearly half an hour later, my mind bogged down with exhaustion as I registered the same white room I’d fallen asleep in. That proved it—I wasn’t dreaming about the Grecian paradise I’d found myself in or the unpleasant hooded boy in the button-up jacket who stood in the foyer outside.

I was still tired enough to lie in bed for a while longer, but curiosity burned a hole through my urge to fall over and rest for a while longer and forced me to leave my room again. I was unsurprised when I encountered the same empty hallway as before, but the sound of a conversation echoing down from the foyer drew me down the hall to my right so I could investigate. When I finally reached my destination, the breath was sucked out of my lungs.

There were then three people in the foyer, all standing in different locations. The sight of them made me seize up like a statue as I tried to observe them from afar, but I wasn’t able to come to many conclusions before one of the figures approached me. I couldn’t hide my disdain when I realized that it was Igarashi, probably come to continue harassing me. “Welcome back. Your hair is a mess.”

“Gee, thanks.” I self-consciously started combing my fingers through my hair before realizing what I was doing and forcing my hands into fists at my sides. “What’s happening now? Who are those two girls?”

“There are twelve more students where they came from. Perhaps instead of asking _me_ for information, you should speak to them yourself. Maybe they’ll give you some clues as to what’s happening here.” Before I could say anything else, Igarashi disappeared down the hallway I’d previously come from. With his absence, I could feel my apprehension about meeting these girls grow exponentially. Just looking at them intimidated me; the girl standing by the door wearing a silver aviator’s jacket and sporting a dark ponytail appeared as frozen as a guard at Buckingham Palace and the girl loitering around near the doorway on the opposite side of the dorm hall I’d just left wore an unusually prim maid dress and appeared to be excessively anxious.

Out of the girls in the lobby, I ultimately decided to approach the nervous girl in the maid dress because she appeared to be the more hospitable one of the two. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, however, she snatched her mob cap off of her head to reveal short cinnamon-colored hair. Her warm amber eyes darted to face the wall to evade mine and her face only appeared to get redder with my presence. None of my confusion was alleviated when, in a voice obviously belonging to a boy, the maid murmured, “Oh no, _another_ new person…How many more times am I going to have to explain today? I don’t think I can take much more of this…”

“Uh, explain what?” I looked the…individual? up and down, trying to decipher why they were so uneasy. “Who are you?”

“M-My name is Hisoka Erizawa. It’s very nice to meet you.” They bowed deeply to me, but they moved so quickly that I thought they might bash their head against my chest.

“It’s…nice to meet you too. My name is Yuuta Teshima. So, um—”

“I can answer you before you ask,” Erizawa interjected. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m wearing a maid’s dress even though I’m a boy, aren’t you?”

“You’re a—?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, I get that a lot….” It looked like his mob cap was about to tear in half based on how hard he was wringing it with his hands. He grimaced as he avoided my eyes. “I’m the SHSL Maid. This might sound weird, but I dress like this when I work.”

“Um…why? There are uniforms for male maids, too, you know.”

“It’s just…I get paid to model dresses like this and my regular clients pay me more when they think I’m a cute girl.” Even though he was clearly still nervous, Erizawa had a startling amount of composure in his voice when he explained himself to me. “B-but don’t be confused. I don’t dress like this _all_ of the time. This is just the only outfit I happened to wake up in. Maybe I was in the middle of a job when they took us here…? E-Either way, if I could be wearing boy’s clothes right now, I would be. Trust me.”

“Oh…Sorry for mistaking you for a girl, then. And for the circumstances, I guess. I mean, if _I_ woke up wearing girl’s clothes and I didn’t have a change of clothes, I wouldn’t leave my room at all.”

“Don’t worry about apologizing, it can’t be helped. Besides, you’re not the first person who’s mistaken me for a girl today…or the worst.” He gave a concerned look to the double doors under the balcony and put his mob cap back on his head with solidarity.

“Okay…So, Erizawa, you seemed to remember your ‘talent’ easily enough. What do you remember about Hope’s Peak Academy?”

This finally brought an uneasy smile to Erizawa’s face. “Oh, you’re another of the stragglers. I-I haven’t really had to give the explanation yet, but here goes, I guess...From what I understand, all of us are first-year students at Hope’s Peak Academy—which, if you remember, is a high school for only the ultimate students around the world. We were all invited there because we have exceptional ‘talent’...apparently.”

“‘Apparently’? You don’t think you deserve your title?”

“Oh no, I certainly do. It’s the others that I’m more concerned about.” Erizawa looked regretful for his words as he avoided my eyes and chuckled nervously. “But it’s been a process trying to remember everything. Everyone else will probably tell you about the same thing. Honestly, I don’t even know what day it is. I have no memories in between now and receiving my acceptance letter to Hope’s Peak Academy....”

 _“I see...so everyone else seems to be in the same boat as me. I guess I just forgot my talent because I don’t remember the hard work it took for me to achieve it. Compared to someone like Erizawa who wears their talent on their sleeve, it’s understandable why I might forget mine.”_ “That’s how it is for me, too...but speaking of this place, what do you think’s going on here?”

“I’ve hardly gotten to look around yet, but things seem pretty safe. This place isn’t exactly baby-proofed, but there’s nothing _too_ bad lying around. _I_ wouldn’t hate staying here for a little while… if the people would stop asking me so many questions. It gives me a migraine....”

“O-Oh. I guess that’s my fault.” My face turned red almost immediately as Erizawa gave me a somewhat tragic look. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop bothering you, if you want.”

“Don’t be sorry. I get migraines all the time…But, please don’t hesitate to ask me for any help you may need. I live to serve....” Looking dismal, Erizawa moved to touch the wall beside him as if asking for its support to escape the pounding headache that he apparently had. In order to lessen his suffering, I decided to approach the girl by the front door instead.

“Good morning! I hope you’ve rested well!” Her booming voice was almost enough to give _me_ a migraine as it echoed through the foyer. Over by the other doorway, Erizawa looked close to tears. “I saw you speaking with Igarashi earlier and wanted to introduce myself, but I didn’t want to force you into an interaction without your permission!”

“N-no, it would’ve been okay. That’s how _most_ people start conversations,” I replied, my voice rising so I could hear it over the ringing in my ears. “So then, my name’s Yuuta Teshima. It’s nice to—”

“Hello, Teshima! It’s very nice to meet you!” Even though her smile was pleasant—if not enhanced by the red shade of her face—her voice was…less pleasant. “My name is Shinobu Ebina! I’m the SHSL Aviator!”

“Aviator? You’re a pilot…?”

“Yes, that’s correct!”

“And you’re just…standing here by the door for no reason?”

“I’ve met a superior officer here and am thus indebted to her command until she releases me,” Ebina explained dutifully, all the while not moving an inch out of her position. “She commanded me to ‘make sure that no mischief takes place inside’ while she deals with the interlopers who opted to investigate outside. As such, I’m standing here to observe all potential ‘mischief’ so I can report back to her—and Igarashi, who kindly asked me to issue the same report to him—and educate them about the individuals here who may be troublemakers.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you explored the building and investigated everyone in person to do that?”

“She didn’t tell me to investigate the building. I’m following her given instructions to a T.” Her expression hardened. “She only told me to stay inside and keep watch. She never told me to move, so I haven’t budged an inch since we decided to investigate.”

 _“That makes absolutely no sense, but okay_ ,” I thought to myself. _“Even still, if I’ve learned anything from her, it’s that there’s some military official outside that I need to look out for. After having Ebina yell in my ears this whole time, I’m not sure how I’d fare against a military-grade drill sergeant….”_ “Sure, that makes sense. Well, what have you observed so far?”

“Absolutely nothing!”

“So you’ve been standing here keeping track of everyone who comes through the foyer for—what, ten? Fifteen minutes? And that’s all been completely pointless?”

“Teshima, your words sting! My purpose is still yet to come….” Even though Ebina looked ready to lower her head regretfully, she kept her chin at a consistently perfect angle as she spoke to me with tears welling in her eyes. “The colonel wouldn’t have not ordered me to move if she didn’t think something good could come of it!”

“Well…okay. You should tell me if you see anything interesting while you stand here in the foyer.”

She saluted me enthusiastically. “That I can do!”

 _“I can’t imagine that it’ll be anything more interesting than ‘the stairs ahead of me are approximately four and a half meters apart!’, but it couldn’t hurt, I guess,”_ I thought. _“Anyway, that does it with the foyer. Maybe I should continue my investigation elsewhere.”_

But…was there someone loitering by the stairs as well?

I didn’t notice him before, but there was definitely a boy wearing a purplish gakuran with a red t-shirt underneath pacing around at the foot of the stairs and staring at his feet. How had I overlooked him earlier? Now that I was looking at him, my heart skipped a beat. Something almost clicked in my mind to help me recognize his face, but ultimately my attempts to remember ever seeing his face—or Erizawa or Ebina’s faces, for that matter—fell away as I continued wondering how this boy had managed to go unnoticed for so long.

When he looked up and noticed that I was staring at him, I could distinguish a glimmer of acknowledgement in his turquoise eyes. His mouth hung open for a second, but within a few moments, he shut his mouth and continued staring at me with curiosity written all over his face. “Oh, good morning,” he said, looking me up and down briefly as if judging what I might be like. He didn’t seem too nervous or concerned with the situation, but there was obviously something bothering him now that he was speaking with me. I approached him when he spoke, though this only constituted taking maybe eight steps away from the door. “Did you just wake up? This is the first time I’ve seen you around here.”

“Oh, uh…yeah.” I decided that my initial encounter with Igarashi wasn’t worth bringing up as I tried to carry the conversation I was having with this strange boy.  “My name is Yuuta Teshima. It’s nice to meet you, um….”

“Er, Shinozuka. Toshi Shinozuka.” His growing anxiety was obvious when he started toying with his chin-length dark teal hair, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell if I was only looking at the smile on his face. “It’s nice to meet you too, Teshima. I hope we can become friends while we’re here.”

After having to deal with Igarashi’s ego and Ebina’s constantly loud tone of voice, speaking with such a meek person was a great relief. “I meant to ask…how did you manage to go unnoticed for so long? I swear that you weren’t here when I first showed up.”

“Really? Maybe you just didn’t notice me.” Though his explanation was sound, it seemed impossible that I could’ve missed him based on his clothes. Maybe he was one of those people who just lacked a presence when they stood in a room? “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t notice you either. I was sort of lost in thought trying to think about all the information I’ve found out so far.”

“You’ve investigated? What’ve you found?”

“I haven’t done much looking around myself, but I’ve floated around to see what everyone else’s found. We’re all kind of in a frenzy trying to find out where we are and how we got here and what the deal with Hope’s Peak is. And oh! That reminds me!” After looking demure as he spoke, he suddenly perked up. “Everyone around here’s been introducing themselves dramatically as ‘So-and-So Last-Name, the SHSL Something-or-Another!’, but I forgot to tell you my title when I told you my name. Should I start my introduction over again?”

“Uh, no, that’s fine. I still remember your name.”

“Alright, good! Well, I’m the SHSL Occult Club Leader. See this pin on my jacket?” He proudly pointed to a little silver badge on his gakuran that depicted a tiny UFO. “That’s our logo. That’s also why I’m wearing this armband, in case you were curious.”

I gave his red armband a considerate nod. “That’s interesting.” Though I had to question how he ended up with such an oddly specific title, I forced myself to swallow that question upon remembering the anomaly of my identity as the SHSL Reformer. “Well, you’re the leader of an ‘Occult Club’. Occult things are like mysteries, right? So what do you make of _this_ mystery?”

“Everyone has a different idea of what this place is. Some people think it’s a hospital, some people think it’s an asylum…some people even think it’s a _restaurant_ , for some reason. I’m personally leaning towards the ‘mountain lodge’ theory, but that still doesn’t explain how we got here. The last thing a lot of people can remember is getting invited to Hope’s Peak. Most of us can’t remember what happened after that.”

“ _Most_?”

“Some people remember meeting each other before they came here, but considering the people who’re saying it, it’s iffy information at best.” He cast an incriminating glance toward the double doors under the stairs. “ _Jeez, based on how many people have looked at that door and cringed so far, you’d think that there was some horrible monster back there,”_ I observed. _“Should I be afraid?”_ “I’m not experiencing the same thing. I can recognize a few people’s faces—yours, for example—but I don’t remember anything past that.”

I was taken aback by the easy way he admitted to seeing me before. “You recognize my face?”

“Yeah. My heart kind of skipped a beat when I saw you. I can’t really say that I _recognized_ you, but I felt like some part of me knew who you were.” Shinozuka’s cheeks started to flush, but he didn’t let that stop him from speaking. “Well, anyway. I can’t begin to explain why that may be, but there’s really no need to worry about it. Even if the circumstances are weird, this place _seems_ pretty safe, for the most part. Other than a few colorful characters to look out for, nobody seems too dangerous or suspicious. So, at least for now, I’m trying not to stress myself out over it. I’m sure everything’ll sort itself out eventually.”

“You’re not afraid that we’ve been kidnapped?”

“I don’t think we were kidnapped. Since we don’t remember anything, I think it’s more likely that we’re here because we got amnesia or something. So, by putting us here as a class and letting us enjoy ourselves at what’s probably a mountain resort, they want us to regain our memories so we can go to school.” He smiled, looking sure of himself. “So don’t worry too much about it. There are some people here who’re losing their minds right now, but there’s really no need for it. We should just take it easy so we don’t stress ourselves out unnecessarily. Right?”

“Right….” Even if Shinozuka’s explanation made some sense, a feeling of dread in the back of my mind told me that nothing was what it seemed to be here. Even though everything looked safe and hospitable, there could be some dark, underlying evil hiding beneath it all. I took Shinozuka’s evaluation with a grain of salt, but getting so much information about the situation from someone who’d actually investigated was definitely encouraging.

“I don’t want to sway your opinion, though. It’s always better to do your own investigation in situations like this rather than listen to the theories others try to feed to you.” He grinned encouragingly. “You should take a look around and see what you can find. There are plenty of other people wandering around here, so you should get their inputs too. Then once you come up with your _own_ theory, we can compare and contrast. Good luck!”

 _“Is that what you do in your Occult Club?”_ I wondered briefly. _“Anyway, his reasoning is pretty sound. It would be best to get a feel for my surroundings and get to know everyone. I’ve already seen everything in this foyer, so I’d may as well move on and look somewhere else. I can’t help but be curious about the dubious looks everyone keeps giving that doorway under the stairs, so maybe I should check that out before I encounter the drill sergeant that’s supposed to be outside or go past Erizawa into the doorway behind him.”_


	2. Prologue (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuta Teshima wakes up in an extravagant building of unknown origin and must attempt to solve the mystery of how he got here, why he's here, and what this building's purpose is as he encounters many other talented students who share his same predicament.

“Godspeed,” Erizawa murmured in my general direction upon seeing the doors under the balcony swing open, and I could vaguely see Ebina galvanize herself into a salute as I stepped inside.

The room under the stairs appeared to be a makeshift auditorium of sorts. There were metal folding chairs arranged in two partitions in front of a wooden stage that stood about a foot off of the ground. The carpet in this room was an ugly and uncomfortable-looking navy blue and the walls were without decoration past the cream-colored floral wallpaper covering them. I was more taken aback, however, when I saw two boys loitering around in this room—one with spiky red hair akin to a campfire and the other with fluffy-looking black hair that went down to his chin. As the fire-haired boy stomped around on the stage and appeared to dart back and forth, the dark-haired boy wandered down the aisles of folding chairs and occasionally lobbed insults at the firebrand.

“Maaan, there ain’t _nothin’_ on this stage,” the flame-headed boy complained—he had an accent and dialect that I could only identify as being ‘urban’ compared to the more polite tones of voice I’d heard thus far. “Y’know, dis one time I was on a stage in Tokyo and _maan_ was it tricked out, I’m talkin’ gerbs, sparkbursts, flash pots, line rockets—now _dat_ was a stage! But here, dere’s just a trap door, but I tink it’s glued shut or somethin’; it won’t budge and it doesn’t look like dere’s a switch anywhere around here so I guess it’s just for show. Maybe dey use’ta have one-a dose overhead projectors on the carts from way back in the day installed up here but they got ridduv it when it got obsolete so dere’s not really anythin’ under dis panel besides empty space ‘n broken dreams. What’d’ya tink dey do with dose old projector tings, anyways? Y’tink dere’s some dump out dere somewhere with just a _bunch_ of old technology, like,  _piles_ ’a dis junk, and it’s all stuff our parents and gram-parents used to see all the time just, like, a couple’a years ago! Isn’t technology amazin’? It’s just so great how we can always—”

I couldn’t begin to comprehend what the fire-headed boy had said due to his fast, rambling style of speech, but apparently the black-haired boy had no trouble understanding him and dually interrupting him. “Please, can’t you save your spiels about the wonders of technology for the robot girl? She’d probably care a lot more than I do...and she’d probably appreciate the attention.”

The flame-headed boy looked almost entirely unfettered by this comment and continued rambling on about his incredulity over our strides in science and technology, but I was taken aback by the black-haired boy’s words. Robot girl? What was this, the future? I was almost certain that we hadn’t created advanced artificial life to that degree yet, but I knew that I hadn’t misheard him. _“Maybe I’ll have to look into that later…”_ I thought, though the idea of running into an artificial intelligence in this already-strange location wasn’t doing anything to help my growing anxiety.

It wasn’t long before the black-haired boy scouring the aisles of chairs noticed me standing at the door and adjusted his reading glasses. “Oh, it seems we have an interloper,” he remarked. Even though it was clearly a playful comment, something about the look in his dark gray eyes suggested that he was seriously bothered by my unannounced intrusion. “I haven’t seen _your_ face around here yet. What do you call yourself?”

“My name’s Yuuta Teshima.” Looking between the boys—who were both eyeing me by that point—I could see poignant differences between the two. The flame-headed boy on the stage, seeming to have nothing worth hiding about himself, wore tight jeans, a V-neck t-shirt, and boots that looked scorched in multiple places. Conversely, the dark-haired boy dressed much more modestly in his dark turtleneck sweater, dark sports jacket, and dark slacks. With his assortment of dark garments, I had to wonder how he expected not to die of heat exhaustion considering how warm it looked outside. “Erm, SHSL Reformer.”

“Reformer? That’s an interesting title.” The black-haired boy raised an eyebrow, but he extended a respectful hand towards me. The flame-headed boy approached from afar and lingered near his compatriot’s arm as we shook hands. His grip was startlingly strong, but I didn’t have time to marvel at it before he released me and began talking again. “I’m Nobuhide Nonaka. This clown at my side calls himself Hideaki Tajima.”

“Pleased’ta meet’cha!” Tajima the flame-head greeted me. The grin on his face looked almost as effervescent as his eccentric hairstyle, but not quite. “He didn’t say it, but he meant it so I’ll just trow it on at de end; I’m de SHSL Pyrotechnician, he’s de SHSL Stiffneck.”

It took me a moment to figure out that he was joking. “…No, he’s not.”

Tajima sniggered, to which Nonaka responded with a light slap to his arm that send him spinning comically away. “He’s being facetious. I’m the SHSL Film Critic.”

“Huh…so I guess compared to the military girl, the occultist, and the maid in the foyer, you two are…”

“If you’re about to say ‘useless’, then I invite you to find a situation in which bumbling around found the solution to any mystery. After all, that’s the only thing I’ve seen _you_ do so far.” Nonaka’s smirk was surprisingly corrosive to contrast Tajima’s playful smile. “We’re getting on just fine…well, besides the fact that he won’t leave me alone for ten blessed seconds so I can actually rationalize and get a lay of the land here. I’m content with the amount of evidence that we’ve unearthed so far.”

“We recognized each other’s faces right away!” Tajima exclaimed from the other side of the room, making some oblong gesture with his arms. “We met in our past lives! Hey, hey, does a hundred yen say dat we were lovers, Nobu?”

“No, and don’t call me that.” Nonaka looked like he wanted to take his glasses off and smash them in his fist as he adjusted them, but their plain metal frames made me doubt that he had a backup pair to replace them. “The reality of the situation is, unfortunately, as he says. I can swear that I’ve seen this…” He seemed to have difficulties naming Tajima, but he eventually settled on a suitable noun. “… _eccentric individual_ somewhere before. I can recognize his face and almost remember having met him, but everything else escapes me. He claims that…well, you heard him—but I think it’s more likely that we _have_ properly met before, but we forgot about it. That’s the reason why we’re all here.”

“That’s similar to what Shinozuka said outside,” I observed. “Is that the theory you’re settling on?”

“I’m convinced that yes, this is a building meant to facilitate the return of our memories. I’m not sure how we _lost_ our memories yet, but I’m considering it,” Nonaka explained. “ _However_ , I don’t share his philosophy that this place is a safe haven. The atmosphere is off and the lighting’s strange, so my Genre Savvy senses are tingling. Something’s going to go wrong here. We’re being lulled into a false sense of security so that our safeties can be threatened later in some big, surprising display that’ll likely make people like Shinozuka fall into hysteria. Those cheerful, carefree sorts are always the first to fall into despair in genres such as this one....”

I had to pause to take this all in. “…You’re popular at dinner parties, aren’t you?” 

“He likes’ta talk to hear his own voice sometimes,” Tajima mused, resting his arm on Nonaka’s shoulder. “But if ya really pay attention to his big, fancy talk, he’s just bein’ paranoid. He’s tryin’ to tie all dis to his movies ‘cuz dose’re all the experience he’s got wit da the real world. Ain’t dat right, Nobu? You look like a shut-in.”

“No, and _please_ stop calling me that.” Nonaka looked about ready to die of exasperation as he brushed Tajima off of him. “I’m only comparing this situation to ‘my movies’ because I’ve been studying cinema ever since I could read. But don’t be mistaken; if this is all part of some ‘plot’ put together by a ‘mastermind’ like some people seem to think it is—like some sort of social experiment—then my prediction is undoubtedly correct. Everything here is scripted with the intention to lull us—the characters in this story—and whatever audience there may be into a false sense of security.”

“So what, you think this is, like, a movie or something?”

“In a way, yes. I _do_ think that this is ‘like, a movie or something’.”

“I just tink its’a good time so far,” Tajima interjected. “Dere’re so many neat people here, don’cha tink? Dere’s, uh….” He appeared to have trouble trying to remember anyone.

Nonaka looked to me with a derisive smile as I looked at Tajima with a frown. “Don’t worry about him. His memory’s about as good as a half-dead goldfish’s. I’d be willing to bet fifty yen that he can’t remember your name.”

“Game on! I can remember his name, easy!” Tajima shouted. “It’s…ahh, shit…does it start wit an ‘N’? No wait, dat’s _you_ ….”

“That’s okay,” Nonaka said, his grin growing, “try again.”

“Aww, man…an ‘A’? It’s gotta be an ‘A’.”

“I don’t think we’ve _met_ anyone here with a name like that yet. Keep at it. You’ll get it by your twenty-sixth guess.”

Feeling that this would take a while, I snuck out of the auditorium and entered back into the foyer. Shinozuka had disappeared, but Ebina and Erizawa were still in their respective places. “I could hear then from out here,” Erizawa murmured in my general direction as I moved to enter the room behind him. “I don’t know if I’m ever ready to go back in there….”

 _“To be honest, I can’t tell which of those two guys Erizawa was so afraid of,”_ I replied mentally. _“They’re both pretty scary in their own ways. If you’re not frightened by Nonaka’s evil smirking and rambling tirades about movies and ‘Genre Savviness’, then you’ll definitely run off when you hear Tajima’s…explosive way of speaking.”_

When I entered the dining room, the very first thing that struck me was its splendor and scale. It wasn’t exquisite in the same way that the foyer was, being a room much longer than it was wide. The ceiling was somewhat low compared to the foyer, but I supposed that was only because the foyer’s balcony seemed to connect to a second floor. It was beautiful for its simplicity—its polished hardwood floors, its huge bay windows that took up more of the walls than the wallpaper did, the large translucent sliding door in the back of the room, the chains of sea ornaments strung up around the room’s perimeter—but the old oak door on the right wall stood out as being a thing you’d much sooner imagine seeing in a medieval dungeon rather than a pristine dining room. 

“Forsooth, from the woodworks arrives another handsome gentleman, here to gape in wonder at the manmade beauty of the dining room.” I could’ve jumped high enough to hit my head against the ceiling when I heard a melodic voice sound from the far end of the room. I was able to identify a young woman with a curled ponytail the color of cherry blossoms and vivid, misty-looking eyes. Her white dress almost made her blend in with the sliding door behind her, but as she came closer, she became impossible for me to ignore as I recognized her unusually curvy features and almost impossibly shiny eyes. But I quickly realized that she wasn’t the only stranger in the room; there was a big guy sitting at one of the circular tables in the back nursing an elbow that he’d clearly hit against something. “Good morning, stranger,” the woman greeted me, her voice flowing and majestic like a vocalist’s. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

I had to swallow a frog that leapt into my throat. “G-Good morning. My name is Yuuta Teshima. It’s nice to meet you.”

“How well-spoken you are! I think I like you.” My face turned to a furious shade of red when the woman tousled my hair with a small, manicured hand, especially since she was almost the same height as me. “I suppose it’s time to introduce myself now that you’ve so graciously offered me your name. I’m called Kanae Fujita, the SHSL Sonnetist.”

“ _Poet_ ,” the big guy in the back of the room corrected. For such a daunting appearance, this large man had a very kind and calming voice.

“ _Ue_ hara! You’re infringing on my artistic liberties!” Fujita cried melodramatically, exaggerating an offended expression. The big guy, apparently named ‘Uehara’, cracked a slightly apologetic grin. “Come introduce yourself to this poor boy! You’re being horrifically rude.”

Uehara shot up from his seat at the implication that he was being impolite and hurried over to me, knocking his waist against a table in the process. Though he winced and stood uneasily on his injured hip, he extended a hand to me. “My name is Shuuji Uehara. SHSL Striker. It’s, erm, very nice to meet you.” The instant after we shook hands, his expression became pained and he clenched his injured hip with a big frown. Something about the shape of Fujita’s eyebrows was vaguely sympathetic, but she didn’t do anything to help him.

“Hey, are you okay? That seemed like a pretty bad bump,” I asked.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Uehara’s pained smile was shrouded with shadows. “Just clumsy.”

Looking over him, it was easy to believe that he was a good athlete; his muscles looked enormous compared to my bony appendages and he towered over both me and Fujita. He’d clearly gotten a lot of sun in all his years—though I frowned when I noticed a bandage on the bridge of his sharp-looking nose. Even still, I wouldn’t ordinarily expect dyed forest green hair out of someone who seemed so well-behaved.

“There’s a time and a place to admire another man’s muscles, Teshima,” Fujita mused, watching me look over Uehara with a coy smile. “Staring without permission is very inappropriate.”

“I…!” I couldn’t find a good enough excuse in time—frustrated, my face flushed as Fujita giggled. I sighed, trying to gather my composure. “I’m trying to investigate the building so I can figure out what’s going on here. Have you two found anything?”

“I’ve looked this building up and down.” Fujita’s smile was easy and appreciative. “It’s a very beautiful place. It almost reminds me of home…though my dining room is a lot more exquisite than _this_.”

“I checked my watch,” Uehara added helpfully. “It has a pedometer that keeps track of how many steps I take whenever I go for a run. According to my watch, I’ve went for a run every day for the last week.”

“So I suppose we mustn’t have travelled here anytime recently,” Fujita reasoned. “As it seems, we’ve been here for at least a week. But if that’s the case, I wonder why we don’t remember this place….”

“You couldn’t have gone on a run yesterday and _then_ travelled here, Uehara?”

“That’s unlikely. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, it seems. Trees and mountains on all fronts…though we _do_ have a wonderful view of our savior, the ocean.” Looking out of the nearest bay window with Fujita, I could indeed see a perfect blue ocean outside…though it was blocked from view somewhat by a picket fence. “Not to mention, I found my curlers in my room. Unless our kidnappers are interested in keeping us comfortable, I don’t know why they would allow me to have them here.”

“That’s reasonable….” I considered this new evidence, but it appeared to contradict everything Shinozuka told me as part of his theory. _“So what am I_ _supposed to believe?”_ I wondered.

“Anyway, all I’ve deciphered about _this_ particular room is that my new friend enjoys smashing his elbow against doorways,” Fujita explained. “And there’s an _excellent_ wine cellar to your right, although I wouldn’t enter now if I were you. There’s a very… _perky_ girl in there right now. If Uehara is a bull in a china shop, then I fear that she may be…a deluded girl with a killer right hook in a wine cellar. Be mindful that you don’t drown.”

“What is she, a boxer or something? Should I be scared?”

Fujita smiled knowingly. “I say you should take a peek for yourself.”

“Watch out,” Uehara added. “The door opens into a pit. You’ll need to use the ladder there to get into the cellar.”

“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind. And, um…can I ask what’s behind that sliding door?”

Fujita’s once-pleasant smile at once became strained. “A disagreeable experience.”

There was a long, drawn out silence after she spoke in which, I supposed, they were waiting for me to leave. “Well…I’ll be on my way, then. Tell me if you find anything new.”

“Certainly.” Uehara smiled genially, but it was easy to tell that his elbow and hip still hurt. “Have a nice day, Teshima.”

 _“Compared to some of the other people I’ve talked to as of now, they’re not too bad,”_ I considered as I descended the ladder into the wine cellar. _“Fujita was a little perverted, but I wouldn’t say that she was_ unpleasant, _per se.”_ The chamber leading down was somewhat claustrophobic, but I found the area at the bottom to be a little less constrained. The floor was paved with white bricks and there were wooden cubbies in the walls to hold the wine in. Observing some of the bottles, I found the wine to be of a regular sort—nothing too expensive, but nothing to sneeze at. That coupled with the considerable size of the cellar made me wonder just how much money was put into this mysterious facility for our sake.

It didn’t take me long to notice a lilac-haired girl standing near the wooden back wall of the cellar, inspecting a bottle of wine on the left wall. There was an intuitive look to her large violet eyes—though they were partially obscured by her thick glasses—and she appeared to be deep in thought. _“I don’t understand why Fujita spoke about her so rudely. She doesn’t seem that unusual,”_ I thought. “Excuse me, are you investigating?”

The girl spun around to face me in an instant, her long hair whipping dramatically around her in a swathe. She blinked once at me, at first appearing curious before flashing a big smile. She looked like she was from another planet, but the seifuku she wore suggested that she was only from a different region than I was. Even still, I couldn’t imagine that most girls in that region were known to wear strapped knee-high boots, shorts modified from their uniform’s skirts, and light blue lab coats with their uniforms.  In the fluorescent light of the cellar, her right arm shined.

…Wait, what?

“Heya!” The girl greeted me, her voice brimming with confidence and cheer. “What’s with that expression on your face? It’s like you saw a ghost or something. Do you need a drink? I can hook you up.” She laughed at her own joke as I stared in shock at her right arm.

“U-Uh…” I didn’t see any sign of fabric folding in the crook of her elbow, I found the hairs on the back of my neck sticking straight up. It seemed that what I was looking at, no matter how many times I looked at it, was a completely robotic arm. “W-What…What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Though she appeared puzzled at first, her expression fell a bit when she realized what I meant. “Oh, my arm.”

“Yeah, your arm! What happened? That’s not _recent_ , is it?!”

“No, but isn’t it cool? I got into an accident a while back, but me and my friends managed to put this arm together to replace the one that stopped working.” She admired it in the light, turning it over and over so we could marvel at the panels on her biceps and forearm. I still felt unnerved at the sight of this totally automated limb, but she appeared eerily enthusiastic about her lack of a right arm for a reason that I couldn’t quite discern. Two loose strands of her hair twitched like antennae as she marveled over her creation.

“You…You built that?”

“Well, my friends built it since I only had one arm at the time, but I _did_ design it. It’s what I do best, after all.”

“T-That’s still really impressive!”

“Oh, stop. You’ll make me blush.” Based on how consistently passionate this girl seemed, I was skeptical that she could blush at all. “Anyways, don’t you know that it’s rude to burst into a conversation with someone without telling them your name first?”

“You never told me _your_ name, either….”

“Wait, I didn’t? Oops.” She looked like she was about to conk herself on the head with her robotic arm before thinking better of it and sticking her tongue out instead. “Well, allow me to introduce myself! I’m Kaho Mitsukuri, the one-and-only SHSL Engineer!” She struck a loud pose that would make a shounen protagonist blush.

“Well, that’s not surprising…I’m Yuuta Teshima, the SHSL Reformer. Nice to meet you.”

“Reformer? What do you reform, metal?”

I shrugged off the question in the hopes that Mitsukuri wouldn’t pursue her line of questioning any further. “Anyway, what’ve you found out in your investigation?”

“That’s the right question to ask! Teamwork’s essential if we plan on cracking into the mystery of this place.” Mitsukuri pumped a fist and I flinched away from her in fear that I’d be caught in her gravitational pull and smashed by one of her sudden poses. “I’ve looked far and wide in this place trying to figure out what it was built for, but I’ve come up with basically nothing. It wasn’t built for _us_ , if this wine cellar is any indication. But then again, there are just enough dorms to house all of us, which makes it look like it _was_ built for us—or at least remodeled. This door”—She knocked on the wooden wall behind her, producing a hollow noise—“has been here for at least fifteen years, I’d say. Sounds like there’s a room behind it, but since it’s padlocked, there’s no getting through without either a combination or a key. Or a _locksmith_ , I guess, but I’ve talked to everyone here so far and nobody’s come close to being a ‘SHSL Locksmith’. There are people who look like they would be able to pick a lock, but no professionals.”

“Alright. Do you have any idea what could be back there?”

“Could be anything, really. A well, a closet full of wine stuff, a basement, another wine cellar, who knows? The anticipation’s killing me, though. I’m _gonna_ knock down this door someday…unless we find the combination, I guess.”

Looking between Mitsukuri’s determined expression, the tight fist of her right hand, and the flimsy appearance of the door, I could easily believe her words. “Well, back to our original topic…if this place _was_ and _wasn’t_ made for us, then what _is_ it?”

“Some building that was repurposed with Hope’s Peak money to house us for a while. I can’t find any evidence saying that the original structure was changed in any way, but there’s a fair chance that the last couple of rooms in that ‘dorm hall’ after the bend are newer than the ones before them. There’s a weird seam in the wall around the bend that might be there because they were added later…not that that means much, I guess. I still have no clue what this building was for before we got here.” Mitsukuri shrugged, not quite understanding that her take on the situation made a lot more sense than most of the other ones I heard that day. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Well, Shinozuka out in the lobby was saying that it could be a mountain lodge. Considering the surroundings and everything, I think I could believe that.”

“Shinozuka, Shinozuka…is he that ghost kid with the bob?” I couldn’t figure out for the life of me whether ‘ghost kid’ was in reference to his title or his lack of presence in a room. “Yeah, I mean, that _sounds_ reasonable…but if that’s the case, then why’re we here? Why’s everything locked up tighter than Area 51?”

“That’s probably a question for someone who knows a lot more about this place than I do.” I shook my head. “Anyway, I should probably get going if I want to introduce myself to everyone here and get a proper lay of the land. I haven’t even been outside yet.”

“Ohh, it’s gorgeous. The outside world isn’t really my cup of tea, but I liked it. It’s just too bad that the ocean is gated off and the pool’s empty. A quick dip would probably help clear my head. But of course, I can’t really _swim,_ so I’d need to make sure that the pool has a ladder....” Mitsukuri spaced out for a moment before realizing that she was still talking to me. “Oh! Well, don’t let me hold you back. Go nuts, Teshima. If you get any closer to finding out what’s going on, be sure to tell me.”

“Will do.” I left Mitsukuri with a kind nod and made my way back to the dining room, where I noticed that Uehara left since I went to the cellar.

“You’re going to the kitchen, now, are you,” Fujita murmured as she watched me head towards the sliding door. “Poseidon be with you….”

I tried to ignore her senseless mumblings as I went through the sliding door at the end of the dining room to enter what I soon discovered was the kitchen. Similarly to the dining room, the kitchen had windows taking up most of its walls, though all of the windows seemed to look out into a sun room behind a screen door. There was also a set of wooden double doors to my right, but that was less pressing than the little girl I saw near the countertops that wrapped around the front and most of the left of the room turning over a large Gala apple in her hands. When she noticed me enter, she turned around with widened purple eyes and a surprised expression that didn’t become her young face. She barely came up to my chin, but based on how big her purple letterman’s jacket was on her, I guessed that she must be my age…or that she had a lot of friends my age. Even still, from the design of her similarly-colored seifuku, it was hard to tell just how old she was. “Oh! Good morning,” she greeted me quickly, moving the apple toward her mouth and…sucking on it? “I don’t think we’ve met….”

I was caught without words as I tried to figure out how old this girl was and why Fujita seemed so disdainful of her. Something about the endearing way the girl looked up at me with her chin pointing to the ground made my chest knot up. “Yeah, no…I just woke up. What’s your name?”

“O-Ootomo. Miho Ootomo.” I could see a growing smile and a slight blush appear on Ootomo’s face just behind the large apple.

“Uh, are you alright? You look kind of scared. A-And is that apple washed? I can wash it for you. Is that what you want?” I tried desperately to figure out what I could say to this girl to make her stop looking at me so sweetly. Under her big violet eyes, I felt as if all of my innermost details and thoughts were being scrutinized and taken to heart.

Finally, Ootomo brought the apple down from her mouth and turned her head up to face me, an appreciative smile on her face. Holding the apple in both hands, she swung it back and forth like a pendulum. Even if she looked less shy, however, she still stared fondly into my eyes. “You’re a real gentleman. Would you please do that for me?” Without waiting for an answer, she lifted up the apple and pressed it with surprising force into my raised hands. The grin on her face and the childish sway she engaged in once I was holding the apple made it impossible for me to refuse her.

As I cleaned the apple, I looked over my shoulder and saw that Ootomo’s expression had sunk…but upon realizing that I was looking at her again, she put on a smile, widened her eyes imploringly, and pressed her hands up to her cheeks to squish them. I sighed despite myself and turned back to the apple, suddenly feeling like I was wrapped around this little girl’s pinky finger. “I don’t think I really introduced myself,” I said, trying my best to keep a casual conversation with this dangerously manipulative little girl. “I’m Yuuta Teshima, SHSL Reformer.”

“Reformer? How cool….” With my back turned to her, I could almost hear that she was making her voice sound higher pitched for me. “I’m the SHSL Matchmaker.”

 _“Well, that’ll do it,”_ I thought as I finished cleaning the apple and handed it to a gleeful Ootomo. _“I guess she’s using her knowledge as a matchmaker to get what she wants out of me. Now I’ve gotta feel bad for the guy she managed to lift that jacket from.”_

“But Yuuta…Everything here is so s-scary….” Holding the apple up to partially obscure her face again, I could see Ootomo tremble like a cold puppy. “I don’t remember anything, and everyone’s so b-big and scary. Did you see that boy in the dining room? Ahh, he had such a scary look to his eyes! He probably wants me to die!”

I imaged Uehara’s face in my mind and couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. Besides the dark bags hanging under them, his eyes were probably the least threatening part of his face. _“And if she talked to him, then she should know that_ he’s _not the person in the dining room that’s worthy of fear. I wonder what she’s trying to achieve here...”_ Though I felt like it was a crass way to answer, with my suspicions fogging up my manners, I couldn’t stop myself. “Well…what do you want _me_ to do about it, Ootomo?”

“I…I know it’s horrible to ask, but….” Ootomo suddenly broke into tears as she wrung the apple in her hands. “Yuuta…please protect my honor by fighting him!”

“You want me to do _what_?!”

“Your muscles are so big….” I was shocked when she grabbed my right bicep and stroked it, though I found the motion somewhat ironic due to the obvious lack of muscle mass that she was clutching. Noticing this, Ootomo’s expression darkened. “Or…well…you have a big heart. I believe in you!”

 _“A big heart isn’t going to stop me from getting punted into the ocean!”_ I cried out to myself, but Ootomo didn’t seem to catch onto my unwillingness to fight. “I’ll ‘protect’ you, sure, but I’m not about to fight anybody here! _Especially_ not the biggest, strongest guy I’ve met so far! Are you nuts?”

“I like pistachios,” Ootomo said absentmindedly. _“Did she ignore everything but the last word I said?!”_ “A-Anyway, Yuuta. Please tell me you know what’s happening! Why are so many scary people here? A-Are we the only normal ones?”

 _“I wonder how many people she’s used that line on so far…and I wonder who she’ll use it on next after I leave.”_ “From what I’ve been able to figure out, everyone here is a Hope’s Peak student like us. We’re all here because…nobody knows. And where is here? Well…nobody knows.”

She puffed out her cheeks. “That’s not very helpful.”

“Sorry, there’s just not much to find here.”

“I found food,” she announced, as if disproving my excuse somehow. “There’s a lot of it in that cellar over there! It’s basically everything you could ever hope to eat over the course of a year or so. The fridge is full, too. That’s where I found this apple.” Despite how fond she seemed to be of her apple, she didn’t act like she wanted to eat it.

“That’s interesting. It seems like we’re supposed to stay here for a while, then. Do you know why that might be?”

“Sorry, no….” Ootomo stared at her white shoes with grief obvious in her eyes before her mood abruptly shifted. “But I know that you’ll figure it out eventually, Teshima-chan! You’re the best! I know you can do it!”

 _“Hey, easy there! We just met! It’s a little early to put all of your eggs in my basket, especially when you were so willing to throw me at Uehara and watch us fight earlier!”_ “I can try my best, at least. I’ll, um…get back to you if I find anything, okay?”

“Pinky swear it so you won’t forget!” Ootomo offered me her tiny pinky and though I thought it was childish at first, I eventually sighed and relented. She positively beamed at me as I left through the screen door opposite to the sliding door I entered through. “You’re so cool, Yuuta!”


	3. Prologue (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuta Teshima wakes up in an extravagant building of unknown origin and must attempt to solve the mystery of how he got here, why he's here, and what this building's purpose is as he encounters many other talented students who share his same predicament.

When I left the kitchen, I found myself in a large greenhouse-like room filled to the brim with colorful plants of all shapes and sizes. A large, long table had many plants sitting atop and beneath it and hanging from every possible location on the ceiling were plants with vines and stalks. It was extremely impressive…and the short, curly haired boy sharing the room with me seemed to agree. He gaped at every plant in awe, moving around their leaves and petals with a small pair of scissors but not daring to cut anything. “Wow,” he exclaimed. For a person so small, I was taken aback when I heard that his voice was relatively normal for a teenage boy. “All of the plants here are perfect! I’ve really gotta give a hand to the gardener here! I couldn’t have grown these plants any better myself…!”

I almost felt bad for entering the room and… _interrupting_ the boy as he stared at the plants. It took a really long time for him to turn around and notice I’d entered the room, and when he did, he shrieked. “Oh no! D-D-Don’t laugh at me! I-I…the flowers are pretty, aren’t they? So you can’t make fun of me for liking them!”

“H-Hey, relax! I wasn’t about to. I like the flowers, too...I guess.” I looked at a pot full of daffodils with appreciation before turning back to the boy. Thick brown gloves, gardening supplies, an apron….“You must be the SHSL Gardener or something, right?”

“That’s close, but no. I’m the….” The boy trailed off, looking embarrassed. “Y-You promise you won’t make fun of me?!”

“Of course I won’t!” _“How could I when my title’s probably just as stupid?”_

“Okay, then. I’m the SHSL Florist. My name is Haruki Hano!” Apparently feeling at ease, Hano smiled at me. It was hard to tell since he squinted all the time, but I thought I saw his eyes glimmer. All in all, he was a very…sunny boy; his curly orange hair reminded me of a marigold and the freckles on his cheeks suggested that he spent a lot of time outside. Besides that, I also had to respect the pleasant shade of pink he wore on his shirt. “So what’re you, the SHSL Boy Scout, then?”

“W-What?” I grabbed my red scarf out of embarrassment and blushed as I tried to hide it underneath the lapel of my jacket. I’d been teased over its visual similarity to a Boy Scout’s scarf in the past, but since I hadn’t worn it for a long time, Hano’s question managed to get to me. “No. I’m the SHSL Reformer. Yuuta Teshima.”

“Well, Mr. Reformer, you could probably stand to ‘reform’ that outfit. It makes you look like a nerd.” I gawked at Hano’s sucker-punch insult as he continued. “But I bet everybody respects you, huh? It must be nice. I’m jealous.”

“Er, don’t be. I haven’t actually been getting _that_ much respect here, believe it or not.”

“Huh? Really? I wonder what it could be. Besides the awkwardness and the insensitivity and the annoying voice and the cluelessness and the girly physique, I can’t think of _anything_ about you that might drive people away.”

“Heh, um…yeah. In fact, I’m pretty sure that a lot of the people here already hate me.” Igarashi’s face immediately came to mind, but reflecting on my other interactions up to then, I wouldn’t have been surprised if people like Erizawa, Ebina, and Nonaka weren’t fond of me either.

“Hum, that’s strange. You seem like a perfectly pleasant person.” I didn’t understand what he was getting at when he gave me a sardonic smile. “Well, anyway! I can help you get through this. I’ve been bullied all my life. I know how you can overcome this.” He grabbed my hand so suddenly that I flinched, but his grip was so surprisingly strong that I couldn’t pull away from his two gloved hands.

“Seriously? You don’t have any…ulterior motives?”

“Of course not! You’re thinking of that mean girl in the kitchen. I’ve always got your back! Now then, you’ve been looking around, right? Did you find anything interesting?”

“Probably nothing you haven’t already found…but I want to talk about what you said concerning the plants here,” I answered. “You said that they looked well taken care of?”

“Yeah! They’re perfectly pruned and they’ve all been watered recently. And if it wasn’t me and there isn’t a gardener here, then it’s a total mystery who it was, right, Teshima?”

“Right…that means that either there _was_ a gardener taking care of things who left once we showed up, or _you’ve_ been taking care of the plants and you forgot.”

“W-What? Are you trying to accuse me of something?” Hano started shaking so bad that I thought he might fall over. “N-No, I didn’t do anything! I swear! Please don’t demonize me…!”

“R-Relax, I’m not trying to accuse you of anything. Those are just the two possibilities. Either we just got here or we’ve been here for a while now. Either way, nobody can remember what happened after we got invited to Hope’s Peak.”

“Oh…What a mystery,” Hano mused. “I don’t know what to make of any of this! But I guess that’s why _you’re_ the one looking around like a hard-boiled P.I. and _I’m_ the one looking at flowers in the sunroom like always. I’m just glad I could help you with my flower-specific evidence. Heaven knows you wouldn’t be able to get that kind of information yourself, considering...you know.”

 _“Even if Hano’s a handful trying to talk to, I_ do _have to give him that. He’s told me a lot more about our situation than most of the people I’ve met so far.”_ “Anyway, I should probably get going. I still need to look outside, and I’ll need all the nerve I can muster if I’m going to talk to the drill sergeant that’s supposed to be out there.”

“Her? No, she’s not the one to be afraid of.” Hano looked like he wanted to cry as he glanced outside. “She’s a total softie compared to _that other girl_.”

“That… _other_ girl?”

“Y-You’ll see what I mean.” Hano looked frazzled as he clapped his hands over his mouth and shook his head rapidly. “But please be careful! She’s a big bully in a small body!”

“Like Ootomo?”

“Ootomo but _worse_ , Teshima! She’ll eat an effeminate guy like you for breakfast! And she’ll floss her teeth with your stupid scarf!” Hano put on a miserable face as I—reluctantly—left the sunroom and went outside.

Upon leaving, I immediately ran into a girl who couldn’t have been more than 150 centimeters tall. She looked cute at first glance—a hand-knit scarf and sweater, a gray tweed skirt with black leggings underneath, a cute pink ribbon accompanying what appeared to be a private school’s uniform—but her fingerless gloves and lit cigarette told a different story. Even still, it wasn’t right to judge a person based on things like that. Her big gray eyes looked hospitable enough, so I figured I shouldn’t run away screaming yet.

When she finally looked up at me, though, her round face twisted with annoyance in an instant. There was something adult about the way she looked at me—maybe it was the seriousness of her expression compared to her cutesy appearance—but I quickly got the impression that I’d just run into the girl Hano was trying to warn me about. “Hey, kid, watch it. I’m not about to play along with you.” She glared up at me without a shred of sympathy in her eyes. “I know what you’re trying. Step off before you get yourself hurt.”

“Huh? What? I-I wasn’t trying to intrude or anything. I was just leaving the sunroom. Sorry for running into you.”

“No, there’s more to it than that, you bumbler. Don’t even try to deny it.” The girl dropped her cigarette and crushed it with the tip of her show, all the while staring me right in the eyes. I quickly realized that, in the instant she took to smash her cigarette, she’d retrieved some kind of weapon from the satchel she wore. A…knitting needle? It was a skinny one, meaning that it was much sharper than the thicker needles on the market. As such, I had every reason to fear that this girl may shove that needle into my throat. “I don’t believe in coincidences like that. I doubt you ‘just so happened’ to leave the sunroom right as I was passing the door. Do you have a death wish or something? Nobody tries to pickpocket me and gets away with it. I know all the tricks in your book.”

“I-I just wanted to look around outside!” I cried. “Get some evidence, find some clues, meet some new people—”

She snorted. “Oh god. You’re looking for a favor, then, aren’t you? You want to ask me to help you ‘get evidence’ and ‘find clues’. Is that it?”

“Well yeah, after we introduce ourselves, but we haven’t gotten that far yet,” I insisted. “Please, I’m not trying to be a criminal or a weirdo. I just want to figure out where we are and how we got here.”

Though the girl hesitated for a minute, she eventually decided that I wasn’t worth killing and sighed. “Fine, then. The name’s Tamaki Sugita. You probably already know this, but I’m the SHSL Yarn Bomber. Pleasure to meet your acquaintance, kid.”

I almost let myself get offended by the name she called me, but I reconsidered when I realized that her knitting needle hadn’t yet left her hand. “Yuuta Teshima, SHSL Reformer. Uh…likewise.”

“If it’ll make you go away, I’ll tell you what I’ve figured out so far.” Sugita looked at me with the same adult-like seriousness again. I was surprised to find out that, despite looking like a child like Ootomo and Hano did, it was impossible to mistake her for a woman who was any age younger than 25…which was strange since she wasn’t even eighteen yet. “With absolutely no exceptions, everyone here’s an annoying dumbass who can’t act for themselves. They’re all trying to group together into little ‘parties’ and make friends without realizing that that’s just slowing them down. You and I’ve got the right idea. Flying solo’s the only way to go.”

“I don’t know, I met a couple of people I liked inside. There were a few oddballs, sure, but nobody too awful.”

“Trust me, kid. It’ll be easier if you let the truth sink in now. That’ll make it hurt less later.” Sugita smirked knowingly at me, making me recoil as if she’d struck me. “Anyway, this place isn’t too bad. Everything’s locked up tighter than your dad’s liquor cabinet and I’m starting to run out of cigarettes, but it’s not _hellishly_ bad. No, that phase’ll probably come once the kidnappers show up again.”

“Oh, okay. _You’re_ the one who thinks we got kidnapped. Everyone here’s been tossing that theory around, but no one seemed to really believe it up until now.”

“There are people here who seriously think that there isn’t a culprit behind this? God, they’re all stupider than I thought.” Sugita scoffed, shaking her head.“Of fucking _course_ this was a kidnapping. Nobody remembers everything, this place is in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, we can’t leave…seriously, there’re people who doubt that something fishy’s going on? How thick _are_ they?”

“For a place for kidnappers to take their victims, this building is pretty extravagant, don’t you think? And nobody’s gotten hurt yet, so it’s natural to assume that it’s a safe place.”

“You’ll be one of the first ones to get dragged off, then,” she said darkly. “They’ll get you when you least expect it. You won’t get the brunt of their bad intentions like me and Slutty McGee over there will, but you’re definitely not going home in one piece. This was probably done by an organized crime syndicate, so they’ve got some pretty nasty shit in mind. They’ll chop off your fingers. They’ll make you dig your own grave. They’ll make you bury your buddies alive before they bury you. Damn…I really tried to stay out of their business. Getting wrapped up with those kinds of thugs is always bad for one-man shows like mine. When I find the kid who lured them here with his debt, I’m gonna rip him to shreds.”

 _“You say ‘him’ like you assume it was me,”_ I thought, feeling somewhat insulted. _“I may not remember anything, but I think I’d recall if I took a loan from the yakuza and forgot to pay it back.”_ “So you operate on your own with your…er, yarn bombing? What is that, exactly? Are you some kind of terrorist…?”

“You could put it like that.” Sugita grinned dangerously. “If you look at the bushes around the building here, you’ll see what I’ve been up to since we got here. In fact, there’s a beauty over there.” She pointed to a hedge that was covered bottom to top with what looked like a knitted canopy. Its peculiar pattern reminded me of a tacky Christmas sweater. _“So she talks big game, but all she does is knit blankets onto stuff. I guess that makes her a vandal, but that’s a little…lame. When she said that she works solo and doesn’t associate with organized crime, I was expecting her to reveal that she was a deliverer of eccentric vigilante justice.”_

“I see. Well, if that’s all, I should probably get going. Uhm, if you can answer this…how many other people are out here? I heard that there was a drill sergeant somewhere, but I think you mentioned there being another person earlier.”

“There’re two other girls out here,” Sugita explained. “That army pig you mentioned and, like I said, Slutty McGee. If you really want to get to the bottom of what’s going on here, though, I’d suggest that you skip both of them. They’re fucking useless. One’s a dog of the military and the other’s a bitch in heat. They won’t tell you anything you don’t already know _and_ they’ll give you a headache in the process.”

 _“To be fair,_ you _didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know about this situation, either,”_ I complained to myself as I left Sugita be and headed around the building toward the front door.

Upon reaching the front porch of the building, I found that the outside of the building looked much like the inside; an arguable paradise with thriving potted plants and painstakingly sculpted pillars. The porch wasn’t too large, was barely canopied, and only stood about two steps away from the ground, but it was big enough to allow a serious-looking girl to lean on the wall just beside the door. Her expression was deeply ponderous; I doubted that she would know I was right in front of her if I didn’t say anything. Looking over her, though, I had to wonder if doing so would be a good idea. Like Sugita’s, this woman’s face was lined with maturity and I was sure by the looks of her physique that she could probably punch me into next Tuesday. There was something rugged and intimidating about her short maroon hair—whether that was because it partially covered her bespectacled face when she looked down or because one half was barbered with skill and the other was seemingly dispatched with a knife was beyond me. Either way, the decorated military jacket and the combat boots she wore told a story of heroism, bravery, and gave a full confirmation that this girl probably knew at least sixty different ways to kill a person…though some of this was stripped away when I noticed the pleated white skirt she wore. _“Maybe the jacket is just honorary or something…?”_

I was shocked out of my skin when the woman looked up and noticed that I was not only standing right in front of her but staring at her face. I saw my life flash before my eyes for a split second before I realized that there was nothing but moderate surprise in her expression. “Oh! I didn’t see you there,” said the woman. She scanned my person with her piercing gray eyes, but it seemed like her inspection deemed me to be safe. “I apologize. I was summarizing the evidence I found while I searched around here. I must’ve let my mind get away from me again. And before you think me slow for it, I promise that it doesn’t happen often. This mystery just happens to be a lot more complicated than it appeared at first glance.”

Realizing that this was my first chance to speak with someone who was not only pleasant but knowledgeable about the situation since I spoke with Shinozuka, my heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t quite place this woman’s face—unlike Shinozuka’s, whose appearance was so familiar that it became uncanny—but I could find some recognition in her sharp features and considerate words once I stopped to mull them over. Even still, I was only recognizing her on about the same level that I’d recognized everyone else—I could imagine that we’d met before, but I had very little recognition of her face.  “I know what you mean,” I concurred, scratching the back of my head. “Every time I think I’ve got everything figured out, somebody steps in to throw a wrench in everything. I thought that we just got here, but all of the evidence seems to point to that not being true. And if we’re not here _because_ our memories are gone, then why are our memories suddenly gone?”

“Unless this amnesia was administered by artificial means,” the woman said, “I can’t imagine any single event that could result in widespread memory loss like this. However, if we’ve been sent to such a comfy, well-looked-after place after being invited to Hope’s Peak, it means that we need help. Based on the trees beyond the gate, we can assume that it’s early fall, meaning that our fall term should be starting soon. If that’s the case, then by all means, we should be in school right now—and we should have already attended classes there for a few months if we all accepted the school’s offer. Something serious must be going on if we’re in this strange place instead. So as much as I hate to agree with Sugita-san, I have reason to suspect that something criminal might be occurring.”

“Don’t tell me…Do you think we’ve been kidnapped, too?”

“Nothing like that. I think we were sent here with purpose, originally. Whatever’s happening now with this memory loss and our continued presence at this location suggests one of three possibilities; we’re in danger, the school is in danger, or someone has made a very big mistake.” She cracked a half-grin. “Of course, that last one is just a best-case scenario.”

“I don’t want to believe in any of those possibilities, though. From what I’ve been able to gather based on what everyone’s been telling me, Hope’s Peak seems like a really prestigious academy. If I got invited to a place like that, then I wouldn’t like to think that anything bad happened to prevent us from going there.”

“I see...you’re like the others.” The woman sounded a bit disappointed. “I can’t talk about the original Hope’s Peak with much expertise, but I do know how important it is—or, _used_ to be. My family wouldn’t have such a strong standing in the military if not for my great-grandfather’s acceptance to that school. I heard that it closed its doors a long time ago, but my invitation there seemed to ‘throw a wrench in everything’, as it is. It’s an honor, of course, but it’s a little ridiculous to think that anything horrible could be happening to Hope’s Peak students again, all things considered. Like I said, I don’t know the specifics, but I _have_ heard that quite a few tragedies took place in the academy’s past. And then we come to our ‘unfolding tragedy’...we begin to attend the school after its apparent closure, and this happens barely halfway into our first year….”

I clucked dejectedly. “Just our luck, huh?”

“A pair of hidden dice was tossed,” the woman said with a half-smile, “and we happened to roll snake eyes. Maybe it’s just as you say. Someone superstitious would say that it’s a curse if they knew anything about the past of Hope’s Peak, but it’s hard for me to think that this is a coincidence in any capacity.”

This woman definitely appeared to have a few more cards in her deck compared to everyone else when it came to the mysterious Hope’s Peak Academy that we all seemed to have in common. It must’ve been the luck of the draw, just like she said; her family reaped the benefits of Hope’s Peak’s prestige years and years ago and, as such, she was brought up to respect it. But what sort of tragedies would have spelled the end of such a decorated history? And what provisions allowed us to become students at such a bizarre ‘academy of the undead’? “But if it’s not a coincidence, then why is this happening?”

“That, I fear, we’ll only discover with time.” The woman zoned out for a moment before quickly realizing something. “Oh! You’ll have to forgive me. I completely forgot to introduce myself. My name is Kaoru Kajiwara. I’m the SHSL Tactician. It’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance.”

“Oh, that’s right! I don’t know how it slipped my mind when I’ve been introducing myself to new people all day,” I muttered. “My name is Yuuta Teshima. I’m the SHSL Reformer.”

“Reformer? That’s—”

I held up a hand to stop her. “Whatever you’re about to say, I’m sure I’ve heard it from somebody else already. I still don’t know what that title means and I’m starting to doubt that I ever will. Maybe it was just a practical joke or something….”

She raised an eyebrow. “I was only going to say that it’s a very professional-sounding title compared to some of the other ones I’ve heard today. I could believe that Hope’s Peak Academy would award a prominent reformer with a letter of invitation. A film critic or a yarn bomber…well, not so much. Maybe you can be my partner-in-crime while we’re here. Or partner in justice, I suppose…Miss Sugita has the ‘crime’ here covered in spades.”

I considered her offer briefly, but after comparing my deductive skills up to now with hers, I had to decide against it. “Sorry, I don’t think I’d be cut out for that kind of job. I’m sure I’d only hold you back. Besides, I think you already have a loyal follower inside. You’re the one who told Ebina to stand sentry at the door, aren’t you? The colonel she mentioned?”

Kajiwara gaped at me. “What? I didn’t tell her to do that.”

“You didn’t? Is Sugita a colonel, then…?” _“That would be terrifying, if true…Getting Sugita anywhere near a battlefield would be dangerous for everyone involved. She’d probably stab everything in sight…or cover it all in yarn, I guess.”_

“No, no, I’m definitely the colonel she was speaking of. But I never told her to stand at the door. All I asked her to do was stay inside and make sure nobody does anything dangerous.”

“She said that you didn’t tell her to move, so she hasn’t moved away from the door since then.”

“Oh, no…it’s just like that peanut butter and jelly exercise my teacher gave us in primary school.” Kajiwara looked like she was deeply ashamed of herself. “Miss Ebina took my wording so literally that  she’s done nothing _but_ ‘stay inside’ and ‘make sure nobody does anything dangerous’.”

 _“That’s what I assumed had happened, anyway,”_ I reasoned. _“Ebina never specifically said that the colonel told her not to move. She just kept going on about Kajiwara’s instructions of ‘make sure nothing goes on inside’ and how she was following them to a T. And I guess since Kajiwara never specified that she was allowed to move, she thought that she was forbidden from it.”_

“I need to rectify this mistake right away.” Kajiwara hurriedly turned around and moved to open the door, but she looked over her shoulder to face me first. “Miss Shimizu is playing by the gate and Miss Sugita is probably still smoking those illegal cancer sticks of hers. If you would be so kind, please make sure that neither of them gets into trouble while I’m gone. I’ll see if I can speak to Miss Ebina as an equal from here on out. I’m sorry for leaving you so abruptly, but this is a very serious issue. Even if I _do_ hold a high position in the military, I can’t start using that position to lord my authority over others.”

And with that Kajiwara was inside the building once more, the red cape on her left shoulder billowing behind her as she went. I was impressed when she managed not to get it stuck in the door when she closed it after her. _“It seems like this ‘Shimizu’ person is the last person I have to talk to here,”_ I thought. _“Nobody’s mentioned there being anyone else and I’ve been pretty much everywhere inside and outside of the building. It would be a real shock if I happened to overlook someone somehow.”_

As I travelled to the front gate to meet this person, I quickly noticed her attempting to scale the obviously-electrified gate without much success; whenever she would get about half of the way up the gate that was twice her height, she would cry out and fall down with black-marked hands. When I approached her, she was cringing on the ground after one of her attempts but was in the process of encouraging herself to try again. When she looked up at me and smiled, I felt vaguely dirty—she was obviously wearing the clothes of a performer based on her sleeveless blue tailcoat, bright pink bowtie, and puffy gray short skirt, but it was so revealing compared to the outfits of the other girls I’d met that I felt like I was looking at something I wasn’t supposed to see. The girl didn’t seem to mind this, though, as she quickly hopped up to meet me; I had to stumble backwards to keep her from knocking me onto my back. “Why, hello there!” She greeted me cheerfully, her voice as buoyant as a pop idol’s. “I don’t think we’ve met yet!”

“Yeah, no, we haven’t,” I said in reply, feeling as if these introductions were beginning to repeat themselves. “I’m Yuuta Teshima, SHSL Reformer. And you’re…Shimizu, right?”

“SHSL _Reformer_? Are you sure you’re not the SHSL _Magician_? How did you know my name?!” Shimizu bent over a bit and looked up at me with her hands on her cheeks and her mouth open in awe.

“Kajiwara told me.” I pointed over at the formerly-mentioned colonel—or, at least, at the area where she’d been standing earlier—with my thumb. “But… _you’re_ not the SHSL Magician? I mean, what with the outfit and the little top hat….”

“Magic tricks are only some of the many things I can do, Teshin.” Shimizu waggled her finger at me, but I was too busy blushing at her nickname for me to notice. “I’m not called ‘Sachiko Shimizu, SHSL Street Performer’ for nothing! Don’t undersell my expertise! If there’s a performance out there, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ve done it before!”

I looked at her teacup-sized top hat with a frown. “So you can’t pull any bunnies or scarves out of that tiny hat…?”

“Who told you that, Teshin? Watch me and weep!”  She took the hat off of her head in a flourish and started pouring all sorts of odds and ends from it until there was a pile of parts seeming to belong to a dismantled toaster lying on the ground. Imagining Mitsukuri’s face if she saw this pile of scrap made me grin, but I was simultaneously fearful of that tiny hat’s might if it was able to hold a collection of items that was three times its size. “Ta-da! You can applaud now if you want.”

I clapped my hands half-heartedly, feeling more terrified than impressed. “That wasn’t much of a magic trick, though. More of a…crime against the laws of physics.”

Shimizu winked. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”

 _“No, I’m serious! You can’t just wave it off like that,”_ I thought. _“I wouldn’t be surprised if this girl was on the run from the government….”_ “Well, that aside…You’ve been looking around like everybody else, right? Have you found anything?”

“This place is cool and all, but I can’t stand locked doors—and there are a _lot_ of em’ here.” Shimizu frowned insolently. “Sooo I’ve been trying to climb this gate for the last fifteen minutes! Having the gate unlocked would make me feel a lot better even if I’m not necessarily ready to leave. But the gate’s electrified on _top_ of being locked, so I haven’t gotten anywhere. What a waste of time! I’ll get it eventually, but I’m afraid that I might bust up my hands if I keep going. And how am I supposed to do gymnastics or play instruments if my hands are all banged up?”

“I’m surprised that that fence hasn’t knocked you out yet, if you’ve been throwing yourself at it for fifteen minutes straight. It seems like it’s at a pretty high voltage.”

“Oh, this thing? Puh-lease! I’ve climbed fences twice as electric as this one before! The only catch is that this one’s super tall…well, that _and_ it ups the ante when I get about halfway up.”

“You mean it gets more electrified?”

“Yeah! Weird, huh? I wonder if someone with a taser is making it more electric.”

“I…doubt that’s how it works. But according to what you said, either there’s a complex mechanism behind this gate or someone’s monitoring us. Either way, that’s not good news. That means that they _really_ intend to keep us here for a while.” I frowned at the fence as Shimizu started looking around for security cameras for some suspicious reason. “Anyway, maybe it’s time to give it a rest for today. If you didn’t get it the first twenty times, I doubt you’ll get it within the next ten.” I began leading Shimizu toward the front porch so that she would stop trying to fry herself on the fence.

Shimizu crossed her arms and stamped her foot. “Ohh, but I was getting sooo clooose! We should try to find a ladder that I can use. That way I can climb over the fence without touching it and finally get rid of that stupid lock! ‘Cause I’m gonna do it, Teshin! Mark my words!”

“I don’t doubt that.” I wanted to tell her that a ‘ladder’ (using its actual definition) wouldn’t be a big help in this situation since it would have to lean on the fence to be used and would itself be electrified as a result, but I ultimately decided that crushing this girl’s dreams just for the sake of correcting her wouldn’t be worth it.

As we walked toward the building, though, I could hear rustling in the wind nearby. “Ehh? It wasn’t windy at all before. I wonder what’s up with that.” Shimizu flicked her head about like a bloodhound trying to find a scent, but I wasn’t able to investigate the strange wind for long before a silky flier slapped me in the face. I thought that I might be dying at first as the paper soundly covered my nose and mouth, but Shimizu plucked it off of my face with ease and held it close to her eyes. “’Hiroi-shiya Rihabirisentaa’… Wait a sec, Teshin, look at this!” Shimizu pulled me to her side, holding up the flier in one hand and pointing to the building we’d woken up in with the other. Looking between the two, my heart skipped a beat when I realized that the building pictured on the flier and the building before my eyes were identical. Underneath the Romanized name for the building—Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center—I could see a tagline written in English that I couldn’t understand. I immediately found it strange that there wasn’t a shred of Japanese to be found on this flier, but the Japanese title of this rehab center was capable of quelling my fears that we might have been transported overseas.

“Ugh, why would you write your tagline in English if the name is in Japanese?” I complained, squinting at the English sentence—it wasn’t complicated or long, but English was easily my worst subject in school. “Shimizu, you translated the title pretty easily. Can you take a crack at this tagline?”

“Pssh, ‘can I take a crack at that tagline’…There you go, doubting my abilities again.” With an elegant motion, she pulled the paper closer to herself and only took half a glance at the tagline before she translated it back to me in Japanese. “‘Hope for a better future’, huh? It’s a bit ominous, but I can see that being the tagline for a rehab center. Even still, Teshin, why’re we at a rehab center?! I’m not a druggie! And even if I was, _they_ couldn’t prove anything!”

“Calm down, calm down! This goes along well with Shinozuka’s theory, actually.” Shimizu blinked at me, probably wondering who I was talking about and why I seemed so stuck on his words, so I clarified. “I got my first theory about this place from him, so I’ve sort of been comparing everything to that. He thinks that we lost our memories at Hope’s Peak and got sent here to recover. That would make sense, but there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that we didn’t just get here last night. Which still begs the question…if we didn’t get sent here _because_ we lost our memories, then why were we sent here in the first place? How did we lose our memories here?”

“Ugh, my head hurts,” Shimizu cried. “Maybe we should take this to everybody else so _they_ can theorize about this stuff.”

I considered this for a moment before nodding. Everyone I met was in a panic trying to figure out what the building was, so it couldn’t hurt to get rid of some of their questions…even if this explanation only seemed to raise more. Still, I was amazed at the luck I seemed to possess if this vital flier just so happened to latch onto me as I was about to put a stop to my investigation. _“I could give that Igarashi guy a run for his money at this rate,”_ I thought with a smirk. _“If_ I _was SHSL Good Luck instead, he’d have to default to ‘SHSL Weirdo’.”_


	4. Prologue (Part 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuta Teshima wakes up in an extravagant building of unknown origin and must attempt to solve the mystery of how he got here, why he's here, and what this building's purpose is as he encounters many other talented students who share his same predicament.

Once we got inside, it took Shimizu very little time to gather everyone into the auditorium so we could speak about the flier we found. I was nearly surprised to see Igarashi again, but his almost protective stance near the door and the worried expression on his face told me that he probably wouldn’t be any nicer than he was before if I tried to talk to him. Instead, I looked at everyone else where they sat in the auditorium.

Ootomo was chatting with a lot of the boys, though she appeared fixated on Tajima for the time being. I imagined that she might have seen his interactions with Nonaka and assumed that he was easily malleable, but Tajima seemed either too thick or too scared to understand what she was trying to do. “Hideaki, your hair is _soo_ cool! But it’s so soft and nice-smelling, too…You’re as gentle to your hair as a girl would be, even if the way you style it makes it look like it could kill a person.” She patted his hair like one would pat a dog’s head. “I wonder, could you be that gentle with _another person’s_ hair? Do you know how to do french braids? That would be _really_ amazing….”

Finally seeming to be at a loss for words, Tajima could only murmur objections that neither I nor Ootomo could hear as he stared at the floor with a strained expression. I would’ve rescued him if I had the chance, but I was so afraid of becoming Ootomo’s unwilling manservant again that I held myself back.

Nearby them, Uehara and Mitsukuri appeared to be having a…well…you could _almost_ call it a conversation. “We’ll try our best and do what we’re able!” Mitsukuri cried, throwing a fist into the air.

“When we work together, we can definitely turn the tables,” Uehara concurred cheerfully, though he appeared much less inclined to shout.

“With our forces combined, we can’t be stopped!”

“Enemies beware, or you’ll be—”

“CHOPPED!” Mitsukuri finished for him and made an excited chopping motion with her robotic hand…that connected directly with Uehara’s forehead. As he recoiled in pain and held his forehead with a sad expression, Mitsukuri cried, “Oh no! I’m so sorry! I guess I kind of lost control! Are you hurt?! You’re not bleeding, are you?!”

It took Uehara a moment to reply, but when he brought his face out from behind his hands, there was a bruise blossoming on his forehead. “No…No, I’m okay. I’m sorry for putting my forehead in the way of your chop.”

Meanwhile, Nonaka, Kajiwara, and Fujita seemed to be having a much more intellectual debate near the front of the auditorium. “I can understand how you think that way, but it’s just not correct,” Nonaka argued. “You can think they’re childish, but well-written children’s movies are much needed in today’s society.”

“It’s true, many children these days are raised by the media products they’re exposed to,” Kajiwara agreed. “Miss Fujita, what do you—?”

“Oh, phooey. We don’t need people like you, anyway.” Fujita smiled easily and dismissed his claim with a wave of her hand. Even if her words were surprisingly mean, she still spoke as if she was reciting the world’s most beautiful prose. “We can decide for _ourselves_ whether films are good or bad without self-righteous film critics giving them ‘two thumbs up’. Anyway, you can’t deny that adult media is much more _interesting_ than the sorts of films that children watch. Much more intrigue, much more mystery, much more… _romance_.”

“That’s true as well…many darker themes can be explored in adult media that can’t be addressed in children’s media,” Kajiwara chimed in. “Mr. Nonaka, your—?”

“I hope you’re joking. Children’s films can still explore darker themes. Maybe not the sex and violence that you’re looking for, but they can certainly discuss important issues. Honestly…it’s really insulting to the industry, judging every movie based on how much adult content it has. In fact, watching movies with unnecessary romance subplots and sex scenes makes _me_ uncomfortable. The only reason why _you_ look for those things is because you’re some variety of pervert.”

“That assumption about Miss Fujita’s character seems like a bit of an ad hominem, but—”

“That just means that you’re _immature_ , my dear Nonaka. You like to watch children’s movies because haven’t explored your sexuality at _all_. I can tell by the way you hold yourself. Being that I’m the expert of romance and sexuality in this building due to my poetic knowledge, I can be your wingwoman if you’d like. I could help you find a suitable mate by the end of this evening if you’d let me.”

“Fujita may be talking about an inappropriate topic, but it wouldn’t be right to discredit her entirely… Mr. Nonaka, you might want to—”

“Kajiwara, why are you going back and forth on whose side you’re on?” Nonaka questioned. “We can’t have you playing devil’s advocate. We need you to deliver our final verdict. This is a very important topic. Perverts like her are destroying the film industry as we know it…and that’s not to mention how gross she’s being.”

“Nonaka is sexually innocent and needs our assistance finding a suitable partner for experimentation.” Fujita looked at Kajiwara with a soft and pleading expression. “The world will end if we don’t help him.”

“Is this argument _really_ that important…?” Kajiwara frowned, appearing stifled by their viewpoints. “Maybe I made a mistake by engaging you two. I really don’t have the authority to weigh in on such an weighty subject….”

Deciding along with Kajiwara that their argument wasn’t anything worth listening in to, I decided to see what Sugita and Erizawa were talking about. It was obvious that Sugita had dragged him to the left side of the room herself so they could talk—a development which Erizawa didn’t appear too thrilled about. “That’s a nice dress you’ve got there,” she remarked, perusing him with her eyes like someone might look at a statue at a gallery. “You get mistaken for a girl often in an outfit like that?”

Erizawa looked away from her as he answered. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“So…what, are you some kind of con artist? You trick guys into hitting on you and steal their stuff when they get close enough?”

“W-What? I could never do a thing like that. What kind of person do you take me for?”

“I’m just saying, it’s an industry that begs to be explored. I’m no thief, but I know my fair share of pickpockets. You could really rake in the big bucks if you devised a scheme like that. Not many slimeballs on the streets could avoid tailing someone with hips as nice as yours.”

“Uh…was that a compliment? I…er…” Finally, Erizawa decided against taking any chances with Sugita. “…Thank you?”

“Hey, don’t mention it, kid. I know what it’s like to be underestimated based on aesthetics alone. Nobody here’s taking you seriously because of that dress you’re wearing, but you don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’ve got your back. If they give you any problems, you can direct them to my knitting needles.”

Erizawa gulped. “I mean, everyone’s giving me weird looks, but nobody’s ‘bullied’ me yet. I think it would be a little crazy to sentence them to death just like that.”

“Well, you know what they say…better sooner than later. You can’t procrastinate when it comes to things like this. Got it?”

“Yes…sir?” Sugita smirked up at Erizawa as his expression paled. I worried that he might faint out of shock and impale himself on one of Sugita’s needles, but I was surprised to see that she wasn’t holding one. _“It seems like she was being serious about protecting him, then. I thought she was just trying to mess with him and make him freak out…apparently I misjudged her.”_

Meanwhile, Hano appeared occupied as he tried to convince Ebina to move from her chair. “But by not telling you _not_ to move, doesn’t that mean that you _can_ move?” he asked. “It wasn’t even really a demand—she just asked you nicely to sit down. You can disobey a request like that without getting court marshaled.”

“But she never told me to stand up!” Ebina shouted in reply. “And if she didn’t say it, then—!”

“If she didn’t say it, then that means that you can do it since she didn’t tell you not to. If she didn’t want you to move, she would’ve said ‘I don’t want to not tell you not to move.’ Isn’t that right?”

“But standing up contradicts the very act of sitting down! I would be disobeying her orders if I did anything different,” Ebina insisted.

“Then couldn’t she have said ‘sit down, but don’t think that not sitting isn’t a bad idea’?”

“Uh…” It took Ebina a minute to reply—in that time, I thought I could see loading circles appear in her eyes. “…I’m confused. Can I stand, or can’t I?”

“I’m not sure, can’t you not? Isn’t that what Kajiwara didn’t say?”

Ebina looked close to tears as Hano tapped her on the shoulder to ask her to stand. I was flabbergasted when she followed his orders and let him take her seat and even more shocked by the sweet smile on his face. As Hano enjoyed his new seat, Ebina shambled over to the far corner of the room like a zombie and sulked in silence. _“Wow…for a guy who complains about being bullied all the time, he’s a bit of a bully himself. Is that ironic, or just terrible behavior on Hano’s part?”_

Shimizu had been standing right beside me, but I quickly noticed that she disappeared to talk to someone sitting down that I didn’t recognize. I took inventory of everyone in the room and decided that, by process of elimination, she must’ve been talking to Shinozuka. _“I didn’t even notice him,”_ I thought. _“I would’ve thought she was talking to an empty chair if I didn’t know any better.”_

After making sure that everyone I met was in the room, I called the group to attention. “Okay, everyone, I have sort of an announcement. Shimizu probably told you something about it. Sorry for dragging you all here, but it’s pretty important, I think. While we were looking outside, Shimizu and I found this flier. According to it, the place we’re in right now is called ‘Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center’. I can’t read the English underneath that, but Shimizu said that it says ‘hope for a better future’.”

“Hold on, let me see that.” Igarashi approached me from the opposite side of the auditorium and snatched the paper out of my hand to inspect the flier. He made a noise to implicate that he was interested. “Well, it doesn’t _appear_ to be a trick. I doubt he’s lying.”

 _“You assumed I was lying in the first place?”_ I thought. _“Where would I have gotten a fake flier for this building from? Seriously, if you’re going to blame me for something, make it make sense.”_

“Oh, great!” I was shocked out of my skin when I heard Shinozuka’s voice beside me and turned to see him smiling at the flier in Igarashi’s hands. “That confirms my theory, doesn’t it? That we were sent here to recover our memories?”

The rest of my class worked to debunk his theory using their evidence that we’d been here for a while before waking up this morning, but all the while, I could only think about the person Shimizu was standing in front of. It couldn’t have been Shinozuka anymore, so who was it? Everyone else I’d met at Hiroishiya was accounted for up to then…unless there was another student present that I hadn’t met yet.

I wasn’t able to think much harder about this, however, before Igarashi spoke up again. “If you’d all give me a moment, I think I can come to a reasonable conclusion as to what’s going on here. Obviously, as we’ve now found out, this building is the Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center pictured on the flier of dubious origin that Shimizu found. I believe that we were sent here when we were meant to go to Hope’s Peak for a reason I can only guess at, but we’ve been here for at least two weeks before today. Our memory loss can only be the result of a culprit’s meddling—and that culprit may be among our numbers as we speak.” My hackles rose when Igarashi turned his eyes sharply in my direction. “Anyway, if I may, I think I have a reason as to why we were sent here in the first place. Would you all like to hear it?”

Everyone in class seemed blown away by Igarashi’s very specific analysis of the situation, but Kajiwara looked a little more critical of his words. “Actually, I’m interested in finding out how you came to such a conclusion. Where did your assumption of ‘two weeks’ come from? What makes you believe that the culprit may be among our numbers?” My heart leapt with Kajiwara’s final question: “And why haven’t I seen you in or around the building since you first greeted us this morning?”

Igarashi seemed irritated at Kajiwara’s skepticism, but the holes she poked in his logic quickly grew as the other members of our class gave thought to Kajiwara’s words. “Hey, that’s right,” Erizawa observed. “Are you hiding something from us, Mr. Igarashi?”

“Absolutely not! I’m appalled by the very notion.” If I could give Igarashi’s act any credit, at least he looked convincingly offended at this development. “If you must know, my time span of two weeks comes from evidence I found during my investigation. I happened upon a receptionist’s book by virtue of my titular ‘good luck’ and discovered that all sixteen of us were admitted here two weeks ago to the day. I was only holding back that information because I didn’t think you would believe in my luck.”

“Strange how _you’d_ find something like that when people like Teshima and Kajiwara who’ve looked over the building in its entirety were only able to come up with a scrap of paper,” Nonaka remarked. “Unless you’re some kind of ghost that can wander around the building without being seen, then there’s no evidence that you’ve looked around the building at all. You would’ve had to have stayed in your room this entire time to go unnoticed for so long.”

“And if we’re really giving any credit to your idea that someone _here’s_ the culprit, then who’s to say that it isn’t _you_?” Sugita brought out one of her knitting needles; even if Igarashi was good at keeping a straight face throughout his interrogation, this motion was able to make even him flinch away.

Once the initial shock of Sugita’s threat dissipated from Igarashi’s face, it froze over again. “…Despair,” he muttered, his voice deeper and much more serious than it had been before. “If I can finish my thought, then I have to finger despair as the culprit behind our admission here. Such a thing is obvious to me as I observe your behaviors. I can’t say that I’m afflicted by the same malady, but that is the only positive conclusion I can come to based on the evidence I’ve seen today.”

“Despair?” Shinozuka’s eyes were so big and round that I thought they might glow in the dark like a cat’s. “You mean hopelessness? Depression…?”

“In layman’s terms, yes. This is a very serious issue, though. For our entire class to have fallen to despair—apparently before we even began to attend Hope’s Peak—there must’ve been some sort of catalyst. Such a thing doesn’t happen on its own. As such, we now have two pressing mysteries on our hands; how we lost our memories, and what catalyst drove us to be sent here as despairs. Chances are high that the culprits behind those events are the same. Either way, we must solve those mysteries and leave this place as soon as we can. Otherwise, someone is sure to take advantage of our confusion and drive us to further despair…if we ever truly suffered from it in the first place.”

This sent everyone into a new storm of worried discussion and hypothesizing, but a new yet familiar voice sounded to break us out of our disarray. Shinozuka’s mouth was in an ‘o’ shape beside me, a face which reminded me of the one he wore when we first met, so I could only guess that that meant he recognized the voice as well. Though I couldn’t make out what the voice said, I could see everyone in the crowd below Igarashi, Shinozuka and I part to reveal a tall woman wearing a short green furisode with a starry-eyed expression on her face. Her black hair cascaded down her back and to her waist like a waterfall and her legs were porcelain white underneath the skirt of her dress. My heart and my train of thought both came to a screeching halt at the sight of her, accompanied by an uncomfortable wave of heat. When I started to feel light-headed and my fingers became numb, I felt a gentle tug at my sleeve and turned to see Shinozuka looking up at me with creased eyebrows that seemed to ask either ‘are you alright?’ or ‘are you thinking what I’m thinking?’. I wasn’t able to respond positively to either question, however, as I was transfixed by the soft, harmonious words that came from the unfamiliar girl’s mouth. “There isn’t any need to panic, everyone. I dreamt about this last night. We were on a bus together wearing our school clothes. I’m sure that we were heading to Hope’s Peak to start our fall term. That means that we can expect to be leaving this place any time now. There isn’t any need to worry about the how or why of our memory loss. Everything will end peacefully.”

“How can we possibly believe in something as inaccurate as a dream?” Nonaka’s corrosive tone told me definitively that only Shinozuka and I were transfixed by this woman. “If we want to get out of this place, then we’ll have to work for it. We can’t sit by and wait for good things to come to us just because you dreamt that it would happen.”

“Actually, we have ample reason to believe that Futabatei’s dream is accurate to what might happen in the future,” Igarashi interjected. “She may officially be the SHSL Barista, but she’s not far off from being the SHSL Clairvoyant. Her dreams have a good record of successfully predicting the future.”

 _“Futabatei…SHSL Barista…a bus…”_ I mulled all of this over, trying to understand the familiarity I felt when I looked at this woman’s face and heard her words. _Futabatei…Chou? Chou Futabatei, SHSL Barista…Why does that name ring a bell to me if I never saw this woman the entire time while I looked around the building? And if she dreamt about the same bus that I did, then maybe….”_

“How do _you_ know that, Igarashi? It’s a little weird. Have you met her before?” Mitsukuri wondered.

Igarashi hesitated. “We’ve been acquainted before. Either way, you can trust that my information is sound in origin. You would all do well to listen to Futabatei’s predictions.”

 _“They must be close childhood friends or something if Igarashi is really putting that much trust in her,”_ I thought. _“But if they are, then I wonder how_ I _know her so well…after all, Igarashi hates me. He probably wouldn’t let me near_ any _of his friends, much less the ones he’s had since he was a child.”_

Just as everyone began to discuss what Igarashi had said, the monitor in the upper corner of the room lit up to reveal a figure cloaked in shadow. I’d noticed these monitors hanging up in every room, but I thought nothing of them at first because I was almost used to having security cameras in every room of a given building by this point—it had been like that since I was young and I couldn’t deny their usefulness in most situations. These, however, seemed to have an ominous feel to them—especially this one, which displayed the outline of a character that you’d expect to see come out of a slasher film. Even with the lack of light, we could see that this mysterious figure was sitting behind a doctor’s desk. In a distorted tone, the monitor said, “Every patient in Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center is to meet up in the foyer within the next five minutes or face a heart-throbbing punishment. Thank you all, and have a nice evening.”

Everyone murmured amongst themselves with varying levels of shock before Sugita spoke up. “What’d I tell you guys? I _told_ you this situation was fucked, but nobody listened. Now look; we’ve been kidnapped and we haven’t thought of a single way to get out of this shithole.”

“Hey, I’ve been looking for an exit!” Shimizu argued. “I’ve been trying to unlock every door here for hours!”

“Oh yeah? And where’s that gotten you?”

This made Shimizu clam up, so Kajiwara was given grounds to speak. “That’s not to say that it’s impossible, though. I’m sure we still have ample time to find our escape before—”

“Oh no.” There was a different feeling about Shinozuka then, almost as if a switch had been flipped in his head. The overwhelming anxiety in his tone created a rock in the pit of my stomach. “Ohhh, no. No, guys, we can’t go….”

“Why not? If anything, that mysterious fellow on the screen will offer us more information about our situation.” Fujita’s voice almost seemed to hold deference for the scary-looking person on the screen.

“And I don’t like the sounds of that ‘punishment’,” Tajima added. “Not one bit do I like that. Totally zilch.”

“Yes, Tajima, we get it,” Hano said with a smile. “Endless nothingness and all that. It’s just like the inside of your skull.”

Uehara frowned at Hano like a disappointed parent, but it did nothing to wipe the smirk from his face. “Hano, that wasn’t very polite.”

Finally, Igarashi butted in to eliminate our uncertainties…or, as well as a guy like him could, I guess. “There isn’t an argument about it. I don’t doubt that that bear has negative intentions for us if we don’t do what he says. As such, we need to head to the foyer immediately.”

“A bear?!” Ebina questioned. “I know this for a fact; bears cannot speak!”

“I know you _wish_ it was a big, hairy bear, darling,” Fujita mused, smirking, “but where did you get _that_ handsome idea from? All we saw was a dark silhouette.”

Igarashi said nothing, only crossing his arms and heading swiftly to the double doors. When he said “Please come with me” afterwards, the solidarity in his voice chilled us all to the bone.

Barely a second passed before the more malleable members of our class started to file out of the room in a great formation, though I noticed that a number of others were lagging behind, various expressions of frustration, fear, and—trumping them all—despair on their faces. I was so wrapped up in my observations of them that I jumped when I noticed that Shinozuka was tugging at my sleeve again. “That Futabatei girl...” he murmured, staring at the door she’d left through with intent. “You recognized her too, didn’t you?”

I could only nod my head absentmindedly as Futabatei’s image materialized clearly into my mind. “Yeah. We used to know each other really well. I’m sure of it.”

This made Shinozuka frown. “I wouldn’t say it was that intense for me...but we were definitely acquainted once before. She...I get a bad vibe from her.”

“A bad vibe? How so?”

“Well, my word is probably useless compared to someone ‘special’ like her. It’s rare that you’ll see people who’ll step up and admit so freely to having ‘prophetic dreams’, but...I get a bad taste in my mouth around her. It could just be because she’s claiming to be the subject of a ‘paranormal phenomenon’ that’s setting me off, but I feel like there could be something more to it than that.”

“Meaning?”

Shinozuka’s mouth became tight. “Meaning...I think you should—”

“You two.”

A sharp comment broke Shinozuka and I away from our strange, private conversation, and we both turned to see Igarashi standing nearby. “If you’re both done loitering and tempting fate in here,” Igarashi said, glaring at me with clear hatred in his eyes, “then you should be joining us in the foyer. Otherwise, I can’t imagine that you’d be fond of the ‘punishment’ that our nemesis in the shadows was promising.”

“I-Igarashi!” Shinozuka stuttered, looking somehow relieved. “Good timing. I wanted to talk to you, too.”

Igarashi closed his eyes, pausing for a moment, before whispering almost empathetically, “Later, Shinozuka. The time for that is later. For now, it would be for the better if we ensured our safety by doing what our captor asks of us.”

“I....” Shinozuka looked like he wanted to object to this, but in the end, all he could do was sigh. “I guess.” I was confused by their conversation at first before I recalled Shinozuka’s offhanded mention of remembering Igarashi earlier. “ _He’s probably going to ask Igarashi about that,”_ I decided. _“I’d be curious to find out how Igarashi would respond to a question like that, but there’s no way Igarashi would answer that sort of question for_ me _. But is it just my imagination, or is he acting a lot nicer towards everyone in the class who_ isn’t _me? Shinozuka especially…he sounded like he was talking with an old friend just now. Maybe Igarashi remembers Shinozuka pretty well….”_

When Shinozuka, Igarashi, and I entered into the foyer, the sheer size of our class as they stood clumped in the room made me waver for a moment. “Nobody has to worry,” Kajiwara announced. “If something dangerous is indeed happening here, then I can create a plan of escape—and, if necessary, I have some training in the art of combat. I will protect everyone here with my life.”

“I know three types of martial arts,” Fujita added, “so I could easily be your backup, Kajiwara…if you’d have me.”

“Colonel Kajiwara, be careful. Don’t answer her question positively or negatively. It’s an innuendo,” Erizawa interjected; something about the desolate look of his face suggested that he’d fallen victim to Fujita’s double entendres more than once that day.

Nonaka scoffed. “You both think _you’d_ be able to thwart a mastermind here? I doubt it. And before you get up in arms about it, it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re women—I just think that the ‘mastermind’ would have a plan to deal with the both of you. They would be stupid if they didn’t.”

“I’d like to see them try and deal with _me_! I’m an enigma!” Shimizu exclaimed. “Phooey to their plans!”

“That’s if there’s a ‘mastermind’ here at all,” Ootomo murmured. “That’s so scary…Can’t this all be a dumb prank? I had a boyfriend who did something like this in junior high school….”

Sugita was visibly annoyed by her words. “Not that I care, but… _please_ tell me you dumped him after he did that shit.”

“This isn’t a prank.” The definitive tone of Igarashi’s words made everyone turn to him with mingled suspicion and concern. “Keep your guards up. That… _figure_ we saw on the monitor should be revealing itself to us any time now.”

I was about to add something to the discussion when, suddenly, all of the lights in the foyer abruptly went out. “Hey! That’s not very nice!” Hano cried out. “Whoever’s trying to mess with us, you’d better knock it off _right_ _now_ …!”

“I hope you bastards are ready for my… _stunning reveal_!” A mysterious, high-pitched voice made us all whip our heads around in confusion as we looked for its source. Spotlights began spinning in all directions in an anticipatory manner before zeroing in on the center of the loft at the top of the two staircases. There was a loud bang and a flash when, out of the smoke, a figure appeared—and to further highlight our fear at this sight, the noise made Tajima shriek somewhere in front of me. The figure that materialized before us was a short, rotund shape with round ears sticking out of its little head, and even through the shadows and the smoke, we could see its shining red gash of a right eye. When the smoke cleared and the spotlights let us see what was beyond it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It a teddy bear-like figure with two halves to its body; one half was white and friendly while the other was jet black with a jagged red eye that gave me shivers. It was well stuffed to the point where it had a prominent belly button, and it looked quite smug with itself as it struck a pose. “And…Monokuma enters!” the voice from earlier announced; but, curiously enough, it seemed to be coming from the teddy bear itself. “Hold your fan letters until I get my PO box set up, please. I’m tired of all the panties you girls keep sending to my home address. I’m starting to get in trouble with the missus, you know!”

My heart skipped a beat in that moment—not out of fear, but out of recognition. Where had I seen this terrifying being before? Why did looking at him make me experience the same familiar feeling I experienced when I looked at Igarashi, Shinozuka, or Futabatei?

Not a second passed before we heard an ear-piercing shriek come from among our numbers and my heart sunk when I realized that its owner was Shinozuka, whose face turned pale within seconds. “I-IT’S A DEMON!” he screamed—his hard hyperventilating sounded painful as his legs shook under his weight. His eyes darted around to look at spots that only he could see—it was obvious from his behavior that he was about to pass out and hurt himself.

“M-Mr. Shinozuka!” I couldn’t even blink before Erizawa was at Shinozuka’s side, catching him as he nearly fell face-first against the floor. As Shinozuka continued hyperventilating in his arms, Erizawa did what he could to calm him...but even his most encouraging murmurs did very little to help bring an end to his panic attack.

“’It’? Did he just call me an ‘it’?” the bear asked. “Am I just an object for your attraction!? How dare you!?”

“Make the demon stop talking…!” Ootomo sobbed, accidentally grabbing onto Kajiwara’s sleeve when there were no boys in her general vicinity. “Someone, please...!”

“A demon! _You_ think I’m a demon, too? Kids have no respect for their elders these days." Steam seemed to be coming from the bear's ears as its face turned red. “Didn’t you hear me!? I’m Monokuma! Mo-no-ku-ma! And from here on, all of you are going to be answering to me!”

“B-But, what are you?” Uehara questioned. “A toy? A robot?”

“A bear! What are you, blind? Oh boy, _that_  sure would be interesting!”

“No, but who programmed you? Whoever they are, they did a pretty good job with the AI.” I was disturbed when Mitsukuri seemed more interested than distressed by this development.

“I’m not a robot or a toy, I’m a _bear_ , you ninnies! Wow, I was really given a crowd of _idiots_ this time!” Monokuma complained. “But who cares? It’s by time we get to the point! I’m sure you’re all bored of just milling around wondering what’s going on here, so I’ll fill you in! I'm the director of this rehab center called 'Hiroishiya', and I've decided using my executive power that you’ll all be staying here for a while. For you see...you’re all suffering from a very dangerous mental condition called ‘hope’!”

“Hope?” Futabatei asked. “But, isn’t hope a good thing?”

“Yes. Hope isn’t a mental affliction, you moron.” Even if Nonaka’s voice was heavily infused with severity, it was easy to pick out the fear in his wavering tone.

“I’d beg to differ.” Monokuma’s perpetual smile began to resemble a teasing smirk. “All of you are so _hopeful_ that it makes me sick to my stomach! It’s the sort of disgusting, sad thing you’d expect to see in one of those fucked-up not-safe-for-work forums on the web. So I took the liberty of admitting you into my humble rehab center so we can do away with all of that pesky hope and give you a hearty helping of _despair_ instead!”

We shared hushed, distressed questions amongst ourselves following this, but nobody had the confidence to interrogate the bear further until, in a near scream, Ebina questioned, “Why do _we_ have to be here, though!? Surely there are more hopeful individuals in this world than us!”

Monokuma seemed confused for a moment before asking, “Oh, don’t you remember? It would be annoying if you didn’t…”

Uehara’s soft eyes were filled with near-heartbreaking worry. “Remember what?”

“Well…surely you’ve all heard of Hope’s Peak Academy.”

Kajiwara put a hand near her glasses and muttered something as darkness took over her expression, but no one seemed to share her sudden understanding of the situation. As if voicing all of our thoughts, Sugita snapped, “Of course! What’re you getting at, dumbass!?”

“You mean you don’t know about all of  _that stuff_? Ooh, this is going to take longer than I thought. I’m going to need to reschedule the date I have after this,” Monokuma said with false regret. “Well, maybe I just won’t get into it here. I’m pretty sure nobody out there would have risked telling you about any of this SHSL Despair stuff beforehand, anyway. Wellll, as ultra-talented students, you guys naturally have very bright futures—which naturally fosters more of that oh-so-horrible _hope_ in the world. Blech! So in order to ensure the proper despairification of the world’s future, we need to start with all of _you_ bastards! With your ultimate talents combined, this world’s future can finally be rid of all of that no-good hope!”

“W-Wait, so you’re _not_ gonna keep us here forever...?” Ootomo questioned hopefully. “We can go home eventually?”

“Of course! How are you going to spread the good name of despair to the outside world if I leave you in here to rot? When the lot of you are ripe, plump, and juicy with my despair, you’ll go right back to your precious ‘ultimate academy’ to start your fall term.”

 “B-But how will we measure despair buildup?” Hano’s face looked tragic. “Is there a points system, or will there be physical examinations?”

“Both of those ideas are stupid,” Monokuma blurted immediately. “No, you’ll prove that you’ve given in to despair and that you’re ready to return home by taking part in _mutual killings_ , of course!”

A few of my classmates shrieked at this revelation, but I couldn’t see who exactly the culprits were. Kajiwara’s face got so pale and subdued as she stared at her boots that I thought she was about to begin screaming as well—not out of fear, but out of frustration or disbelief that her theories had been confirmed. “M-Mutual killings!?” asked Tajima frantically. “Shoot, _shoot,_ what does that even _mean,_ man…!?”

“Ugh, do I _really_ have to explain everything!? Haven’t any of you heard of the other games!?” Monokuma roared. “ _Mutual killings!_ You have to murder one another! If you get away with it in a class trial, you’ll have proven yourself despairified enough to leave Hiroishiya! Am I ringing any bells?”

“K-k-k-k- _kill_!?” Shimizu questioned. “As in, murder?”

“A-a-a-a-as in, _no shit_ ,” Monokuma mimicked sardonically. “And I’ll let you all know, from this point on, I won’t be taking any more stupid questions along the lines of ‘B-B-B-But Monokuma-sama-san, you dashing prince, what’s gonna happen to me and my idiot classmates?!’. If you don’t get what I’m saying, then you’ll understand when shit starts to get interesting. I’ll only take direct statements and the like. And you’re all welcome to scream if you want.”

Shinozuka opened his mouth—presumably to take Monokuma up on his offer—but Erizawa covered his mouth and shushed him so that he wouldn’t lose any more breath. I turned to Igarashi beside me to search for a reaction, but he seemed…angry. Not afraid, not worried, not sad, just…fuming. It was unlike any rage I’d ever seen before, and in an instant, he cried out, “We won’t be defeated by you, Monokuma! Our hope won’t die like this!”

“Oh, Igarashi! I was hoping that you’d pipe up, you wankstain. You’re my _least_ favorite out of the bunch. The fans always hate the edgy, mysterious characters who know more than they’re letting on if they don’t make for good end-game waifus,” Monokuma mused; oddly, from the sound of his voice, it was almost like they already knew each other. “Oh please, say _more_. Go on, tell me what you’re gonna do to me! What’re you wearing? Oh, _s-stop_ it! You’re going to m-make me—!”

“You disgust me. Truly, _truly_ do you disgust me, you reprehensible bastard.” Igarashi’s voice became a terrifying whisper. “You’ve chosen the wrong victims today. Together, with the fifteen of us, we’ll destroy you _and_ your horrible cause once and for all.”

 _“Fifteen? Did Igarashi miscount?_ ” I thought confusedly. _“There are sixteen of us, including him…what’s he talking about?”_

“Heh, is _that_ what you think?” Monokuma giggled. “Please, Igarashi. I’ve been through this song and dance just about a million times now and never _once_ have I ever seen a group of bastards like these come together and _stay_ together. You’re just deluding yourself if you think these idiots will fare any better. You and I _both_ know that they’re a particularly slow bunch. There’s no hope left for them now that _I’ve_ arrived!”

Igarashi paused to catch his breath, but as all of us were too startled to interject, it was completely silent past Shinozuka’s sharp breaths. “We will,” he asserted. “I’ll make sure of it. Now, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave. Immediately. I know you won’t leave this rehab center without a fight, but I’ll see to it that you’re hung if you threaten us here any longer.”

Monokuma pondered this briefly. “Well, fine. But only because I’m tired, not because you told me to or anything! I need to let all of you bastards have some time to plan your murders, anyway. Upupupupu! Later!” With a loud boing, Monokuma disappeared and the lights in the foyer slowly returned to normal.

There was a taut, poignant silence for a long time in which all of us contemplated what had just happened that was only broken when Igarashi addressed us; “Everyone, listen closely,” he said, sounding almost fatherly in a weird way. “We can’t let the despair take over. Not this time, and not ever. We need to stay true to ourselves and all bind together as a group to defeat this threat.”

“B-but, how will we get home? Surely we can’t go along with that bear’s plan,” Ebina whimpered.

“I’m sure we can work something out without killing each other,” I said, though I wasn’t too confident in my words. “There has to be _some_ way out. He couldn’t have accounted for every exit here.”

“Or maybe this is some kind of escape room,” Shimizu suggested. “Like, we’re _supposed_ to find our way out and the ‘killing game’ mumbo-jumbo is just flavor text!”

“No…no, he was being dead serious.” Igarashi looked at where Shinozuka and Erizawa sat on the floor with an austere glaze over his eyes—I began to worry about whether Shinozuka was conscious or not by this point. “I don’t doubt that we can find a peaceful way out of here, but he was being anything but facetious just now. People are _meant_ to suffer and die in his ‘game’—the only catch is that we won’t allow such a thing to happen. Can we make a pledge to that effect?”

“A pledge?” Tajima was absolutely bamboozled. “Whaddaya mean by that? Like, a promise, sorta…?”

“Yes. A promise we will make to one another right now.” The frigidness of Kajiwara’s tone rivaled even Igarashi’s. “While we are here together, no deaths will take place. We will not bully each other”—she gave noticeable glances to Hano and Nonaka—“we will not disrespect each other”—she then looked to Sugita and Tajima, who both looked scandalized by this action—“and above all, we will not _harm_ each other.” Finally, she looked over the group as a whole with an expression that could make a stubborn horse drink itself to death. “Do I make myself clear?”

Igarashi looked almost proud of Kajiwara as he observed her confident posture. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

“I volunteer to protect anyone if necessary,” Uehara piped. “If there’s ever a physical confrontation, I’ll do my best to break it up. That’s always what I used to do on my football team.”

“And I _know_ I said as much earlier, but I still know three kinds of martial arts. If anyone feels unsafe, I’d be more than willing to protect them, as well,” Fujita added.

Nonaka scoffed. “Are you sure you don’t mean ‘ _marital_ arts’? I can’t see you being capable of winning a fight against _anyone_ , much less a person with a weapon. Instead, I volunteer _myself_ to be our class’s protector. I may not be in the best shape, but I’ve watched enough old kung-fu movies and Westerns that I could probably hold my own in a fight.”

“Choreographed combat is nothing like field combat!” Ebina screeched. “I was trained in the ways of physical combat in flight school! I can be solicited for help if necessary!”

Shimizu bumped into a bunch of people in her attempt to figuratively—and literally—butt her way into the conversation. “Oh, please! I’m a master of capoeira _and_ beatboxing! Nobody could get past me if they tried!”

Mitsukuri gave Shimizu an appreciative smile. “Sorry, Shimizu, but beatboxing isn’t really a martial art. Props, though—I’ve still got to appreciate the enthusiasm. I _don’t_ know any martial arts, but I’ve watched a lot of shounen anime. I’d probably be good to wallop a culprit or two...or three. My arm is a weapon that’s attached directly to my body and I’ve proved with scientific tests that I can knock a person out with it!”

“By that, you mean that you’ve knocked _yourself_ out with it. And since experiments need to be repeated over and over and see the same results each time to be valid, you’ve probably done it a lot.” Hano’s sweet smile was sickening. “But I’ve got garden shears in my pocket if anybody ever needs them! I probably couldn’t use them for anything useful myself, but someone ‘strong’ and ‘cool’ like Tajima could probably get some use out of them if a culprit tried to kill someone.”

“Huh? Oh, right, I guess I _do_ got some muscle from carryin' stuff around all da time.” Tajima scratched his head, clearly anxious due to the attention Hano sprung on him. “Yeah, I could prob’ly punch a guy out…prob’ly. B-But if the culprit’s somebody like Sugita, then forgeddit! I mean, it’s not like I’m scared or anythin’, I jus’...don’ punch girls, is all. Yeah….”

Sugita had her needles out in an instant. “Hey, what the hell makes you think that _I’d_ wanna kill anybody? I hate the sort of people who prey on the weak to make their own situations better! If I see anybody try to kill anybody else here, I’ll send this knitting needle _straight_ through their jugular!”

“But if everyone’s super tough and strong, then who would win?” Ootomo whined, clutching helplessly onto Igarashi’s leg—I was surprised when he appeared nonplussed by this development. “If a strong enough culprit came for me and nobody could protect me, then I…I…!”

“Don’t worry, Miss Ootomo,” Erizawa said with determination, cradling Shinozuka’s head on the floor with the same sort of carefulness that one would hold a porcelain tray. “Such a thing won’t happen to us. I can make sure of it. If everyone is well taken care of here, then no one should have any reason to kill anybody else. I’ll make life here at Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center a paradise if it means that I can contribute to our common cause of peace.”

“Yes! Nobody should worry. Everything will work out just as my dream described.” Futabatei clapped her hands together with a smile. “…though, for the record, scalding hot coffee to the face is usually enough to put someone in the hospital. Aaaanyway, that being said, who wants some cappuccinos?”

“Now wouldn’t be a very good time.” I would have forgotten Igarashi was in the foyer if not for Ootomo’s sudden insistence on clinging to him. “I know this sounds insane because the sun is still high in the air, but we should consider getting some rest. It’s been a very eventful day.”

“What are you talking about? It’s only three in the afternoon. I’ve just hit my stride,” Nonaka complained. “Why would we want to go to bed?”

“Yeah, why do we have to listen to _you_ , anyway? Who made _you_ the ruler of the world?” Sugita questioned.

Futabatei’s frown made my heart shiver for a reason I couldn’t discern. “Igarashi, that’s nonsense. I’ll admit that I usually sleep in the daytime, but expecting the others to do it is a little insane, don’t you think? It would badly disrupt their nightly routines and encourage nocturnal wandering…and if what that bear said about a ‘killing game’ is true, then such a thing could be dangerous, no?”

This took a minute for Igarashi to accept. “Damn. You’ve caught me.”

I was taken aback by his wording. “Caught you?”

“Yes, Teshima. Caught me.” His glare, which was disturbingly toxic compared to the fatherly kindness he gave to the rest of our class, froze me in place…but I was shocked when he went on to avert his eyes from me and try to cover his face with his hood. “Futabatei, as usual, has a very good point. I respect her greatly for her vast intelligence. She’s a very beautiful and insightful woman.”

Futabatei’s cheeks flushed. “Oh, thank you! You don’t seem much like the compliment type, Igarashi. I appreciate it,” she exclaimed, but I could hear something fake underlying her tone.

“You’re hiding something.” From the sound of her voice, it was obvious that Kajiwara wasn’t just accusing Igarashi of such a crime—she was stating it as a fact. “It’s vital that you be honest with us in such a dangerous situation, Mr. Igarashi. I probably don’t need to remind you as much.”

“Yes, I…I know.” This fact seemed to trouble him greatly, but he still kept his mouth shut about the truth he was obscuring. After a long pause, he spoke again. “I’m kidding myself if I think you’re all about to go to bed just because I tell you to. You can go have your cappuccinos for now. But I’ll warn you…be very careful. Monokuma is a dangerous enemy. Any friends you make here can and will be used against you.”

When Igarashi skulked off to his room with a secretive gait, Uehara turned his gaze to the ground. “…So much for ‘We need to stay true to ourselves and all bind together as a group’, I suppose.”

“Eh, who cares? Forget him. Who needs a guy like that?” Mitsukuri’s flippant behavior invited a smile to my face. “Let’s all chill out and have some coffee, courtesy of the Hope’s Peak Academy-certified SHSL Barista!”

“You all won’t regret it,” Futabatei said sweetly. “Trust me; don’t listen to Igarashi's worrying. We’ll be just fine if we become friends with each other and learn to get along.”

“So who’s the SHSL Airhead then? Is it you, or Tajima…?” Hano wondered.

Futabatei’s smile didn’t leave her face, but her tone entirely changed. “I’ll thank you not to call me an airhead, boy. I may work at three maid cafes, but I have a...secret.”

Tajima looked like he could pass out—I couldn’t tell if it was because of the secret Futabatei mentioned or some left-over shock from Monokuma’s presentation. “S-Secret...?”

“Yes. Secretly, underneath my facade as a mild-mannered—if not jaw-droppingly beautiful—barista at three maid cafes, I am...a psychoanalyst.”

Hano raised an eyebrow. “A...what now? That just sounds like make-believe.”

“And I think that _you_ sound like ‘lost potential’.” The glimmer that appeared in Futabatei’s eyes made me feel like she could see into my soul. “Your need to incessantly bully everyone in class comes from a long-dormant need to express your ‘self’ in a helpful way after you shoved it down to the depths of your unconscious due to years of bullying. You’ll be berated if you show any kind of weakness, right? So you hide your more intimate details under a mean persona that keeps people away from you, but all that does is eat away at your heart and fill you with unnecessary stress and anxiety that only serves to further fuel your internal cycle of hatred. If you come to terms with yourself and your innermost thoughts instead of trying to obfuscate and warp them, then I think you’ll be a much happier person.”

There was a dead silence in the foyer before we heard Hano start to sniffle. “Junior high….” He whined—his face looked a lot less sunny than it had when I met him in the sunroom. “I-I only hide myself...because I don’t believe in other people anymore. Everyone has evil in their hearts, a-and I thought that the only way to combat that evil...was to turn to evil myself! A-And it worked...vaguely...for a couple of minutes. But my hope...It looked like I could finally crawl out of this endless web of torment, but I’m still the bottom of the food chain…I’m even lower than an aphid on a petunia....”

Futabatei’s eyes lit up. “No you’re not—Igarashi is. Anyway, cappuccinos!”

That strange instance of random melodrama out of the way, my class and I headed to the dining hall, cheerful conversations abounding us despite Igarashi’s absence (and Erizawa’s temporary absence as he took Shinozuka back to his dorm). Even if the atmosphere seemed fine now, I couldn’t help but wonder what the future might hold for us. Futabatei said that she saw everyone on the bus and addressed them like old friends…all except for Igarashi, who she referred to with indifferent, formal pronouns. Did that mean that we were all destined to leave without Igarashi, or was that a memory of our arrival—sans Igarashi?

But that mystery was too large to begin thinking about when everyone was trying to engage me in conversation. Instead, my thoughts went to the mysterious Monokuma and the ‘killing game’ he described to us.  Surely no one here would be willing to kill, would they? We were all just teenagers; we weren’t meant to kill, we were meant to grow up and lead the Earth forward. That bear must have been stupid to think that we’d ever go along with his idiotic rules…

Of course, that’s what I thought at first. I was full of hope then—completely inspired to live past all of the confusion and discord that Monokuma drummed up. But our destinies disagreed.

Our time at Hiroishiya would go by just as Monokuma said it would. The despair would begin to overtake us all.

PROLOGUE--END; 16/16 ALIVE

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all, and thank you for reading the prologue for my passion project, Hyper Danganronpa! I've been writing and developing this story since December 2015 with hopes of posting it online someday, and I'm excited to say now that today is the day that that dream of mine will come true...even if I AM worried that this will fall into obscurity much like my other fanfictions have in the past. If you enjoyed what you read here today, you should check out my profile to subscribe to me and consider checking out my blog that I have linked there so that you can see official art and bios for some of the characters you've been introduced to in this prologue--along with some extra material like editorials, development history, and free-time events later down the line. Either way, I sincerely hope that you enjoyed this introduction to my series and will continue to follow it as things around Hiroishiya Rehab Center start to become a little bit more...murder-y.


	5. Chapter 1 - Daily Life (Part One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuta Teshima wakes up the morning after an evil robotic bear named Monokuma revealed his plans to start a 'mutual killing game' among these uber-talented high school students and tries his best to get along with his classmates.

CHAPTER 1--BEGINNING

I found myself in the same dream that I’d had the day prior. I was on a bus, feeling aching and sore, as it rumbled up an unpaved forest road. I wore a blazer emblazoned with what I assumed to be Hope’s Peak’s logo overtop a black tie and a white dress shirt, and the light gray slacks I wore were soft and comfortable against my legs. Though everything was much more detailed here, the same surreal feeling as the first dream overtook me.

For a moment I assumed that the dream would end at this point as it did the first time, but to my surprise, I noticed someone sitting in the seat beside me with a concerned expression on their face. They had clearly been staring at me for quite some time. “Hey, are you awake?”

I turned drowsily and could make out her flowing black curls and soft brown eyes. My heart skipped a beat as I wondered if I looked good enough to be seen by her, but I eventually decided that this didn’t matter. “What…Chou …?”

“Yuu.” Chou seemed relieved to hear this. “…Do you think we’ll be okay at this new place?”

“I have hope.” The words came from my mouth and were produced my by voice, but they weren’t mine. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. We’ll be back in no time.”

“But do you think it’ll be alright? The place we’re going, I mean?”

Whatever force was speaking for me took a moment to answer her. “…I think so. Nothing could be as bad as what we’re leaving behind…”

 

I didn’t get much time to think my words over before I woke up with a start in my bedroom at Hiroishiya. This morning marked the second day we remembered being at Hiroishiya, with the first day going by easily without any notable events. Nobody saw Shinozuka or Igarashi since they went to their rooms, but the rest of us grew closer as a class as we drank Futabatei’s coffee, listened to Shimizu beatbox, and played a game of Mafia that ended with the stunning revelation that Uehara had managed to kill everyone in our class without arousing suspicion once (“I’m sorry to have deceived you all,” he said when he was the last living soul, “but your expressions upon dying and discovering the true culprit _were_ pretty funny.”). I was absolutely wiped out when I went to bed that night, and I was absolutely wiped out when I got up that morning.

The sun had only just begun to appear over the horizon again when I woke up, and I covered my face with my hand in an attempt to wipe the tiredness from eyes. When I removed my hand, however, I was taken aback—instead of a uniform white, the walls of my room were hot pink and the sheets of my bed were ocean blue. The desk and chair stood in the corner in an ordinary tan brown color. _"At least the colors don’t hurt my eyes anymore, I guess,”_ I thought as I got out of bed and stretched. I nearly missed the blank monitor hanging over my doorway on my way out, but when I noticed it, my heart sunk in my chest. _“I guess that the bear will probably get some use out of that stupid thing, huh?”_

I had been trying not to think about what the bear had told us since Igarashi departed to his room yesterday, but it came rushing back to me in an instant. Mutual killing, class trials, despair…I felt dizzy all of a sudden, but I caught my bedpost to keep myself stable. _”No…no, that’s not going to happen,”_ I told myself. _“No one’s going to kill anyone else. None of us would stoop that low just to get out of here after everything we’ve been through together so far. I need to trust what Futabatei said—we’ll escape this place without a doubt.”_ Suddenly, Shinozuka’s screams upon hearing Monokuma’s announcement began to ring out in my head as a reminder of the reality of the situation. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was enveloped by disbelief and terror in the face of Monokuma’s announcement. I thought of my classmates and despite the fun times we shared yesterday, all I could think about was who might be the first to kill. Everyone had their suspicious qualities about them, I had to admit—I could see any one of them committing such a heinous crime if pushed far enough. I imagined motives for everyone and had an easy time of it until I remembered Igarashi. Even just thinking about him and his strange hatred for me made my head hurt.

I was only brought out of my thoughts when I heard the monitor above my door buzz to life and display Monokuma, who was seated at what appeared to be a doctor’s desk. Many oddities and knick-knacks were displayed on the desk top ranging from a crystalline apple to a strange organism suspended in formaldehyde to a bottle-sized rubber arm with a pink syringe stuck into its vein. Monokuma, meanwhile, was wearing generic doctor’s garb; a lab coat, head mirror, and stethoscope. “Good morning, Hiroishiya patients! It’s time to rise and shine and get to work! Don’t forget to take your daily dose of despair before the end of the day! Happy despairing~!” Just as quickly as it had turned on, the monitor turned off again and I was left relatively baffled. What was there to do today? We could try to have fun again, but my dream, the sudden memory of Shinozuka’s screams and Monokuma’s reappearance dragged me back into a reality where such a thing was probably impossible. I wanted to lie in my bed and hide from all of this—pretend like it wasn’t happening and try to have pleasant dreams instead—before I heard a chime sound from my door.

I wandered drowsily over and opened it to see Igarashi, whose nose was scrunched up in immediate disgust at my appearance. He made an overt effort to avoid looking directly at me, but I could still feel anger radiating from his narrowed eyes. “Teshima,” he regarded me coldly. “We’re having breakfast together in the dining hall. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll attend with the rest of us. Mostly everyone else is already there, so try not to dawdle and make us wait.” Without even so much as a goodbye, Igarashi went straight in the direction of the dining hall.

“Well…I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” I muttered to myself as motivation to leave my room and head towards the dining hall.

When I got to the foyer, I found Ootomo milling around near the auditorium doors. Due to the absence of anyone else around her, I assumed that she was waiting for a boy to go to breakfast with—which became even more obvious when she noticed me immediately and skipped in my direction. “Oh, good morning, Yuuta!” she exclaimed, a big smile on her face. There was some obvious fear underlying her words, making her tone sound more fake than usual. “You look super cute today. You probably slept really well last night, huh?”

“Ugh…not really.” I rubbed my eyes on impulse. “I feel like I barely slept at all, actually…”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Maybe Akira will let you get some more sleep before we start the day.” Ootomo swayed cutely back and forth as she spoke, her lips pursed thoughtfully as she looked up at me. “I can get you some warm milk, if that would help. That’s always what my mom used to get me whenever _I_ couldn’t sleep.”

“Um…that won’t be necessary, I think…” I said. _“And since when was Igarashi the one who calls all of the shots around here?”_

“Well anyways, everybody’s in the dining room already, but I wanted to wait out here for you to come out of your room. I was waiting for Toshi too, but I don’t know if he wants to come out of his room yet….” Ootomo frowned, but her mood quickly brightened again. “So let’s go together, Yuuta! Just you and me!”

Even if I was afraid of becoming Ootomo’s manservant again, I decided to go along with her anyway. _“If we’re going to be here for a while, then it wouldn’t be a good idea to let everyone know that I’m afraid of a little girl who can’t possibly be taller than a meter and a half….”_

We entered the dining room to see that everyone who showed up to breakfast was huddled around one of the round tables in the center of the room…all except for Igarashi, who stood aside and watched over them almost protectively. He hardly gave me a glance when I entered before he directed his attention back to everyone at the table. “Hey, what’s all this?” I asked, beginning to come over.

“Oh! Good morning, Yuu,” Futabatei greeted me, dislodging herself from the crowd and smiling at me. Upon seeing that I was engaged in conversation with another girl, Ootomo sulked and snuck off to bother another of the boys in our class. I was almost taken aback by the way Futabatei addressed me before I remembered the dream she claimed to have where she exclusively recognized me as ‘Yuu’ rather than by my first or last name.

She handed me a black tablet from the table as if it were a steaming cappuccino. “Here, this belongs to you. It displays your name when it’s turned on.”

I took the tablet and looked it over. It looked relatively old fashioned—like something my parents would probably own—but it seemed to be in very good shape for its age. “What is it?”

Futabatei thought this over briefly. “Well, literally, it’s one of those old-fashioned tablets. Besides the obvious, though, I think it’s supposed to work like some kind of electronic handbook or ID. I’ve been calling it a ‘Handy ID’, but that’s probably a pretty stupid name for it…”

“Try ‘ElectroID’ on for size.” Igarashi gave a courteous smile to Futabatei as he approached us. “These are older models, but the name remains the same. I suppose these old-fashioned ones were the only ones Monokuma could afford for us.”

I looked to Igarashi with a confused frown. “Wait, you know what these are?”

The kind expression on Igarashi’s face immediately evaporated when I opened my mouth to speak. “Yes, I’ve heard of them. They’re relatively par for the course when it comes to life at Hope’s Peak. Anyone who knows anything about the school knows that these are standard issue. Every student is meant to get one. I suppose we never had them assigned to us since we never technically ‘went’ to Hope’s Peak.”

“Anyway, try playing with it for a while, Yuu.” Futabatei’s smile was absolutely enchanting to me. “I want to see how yours works. I can’t get mine to do anything but turn on so far.”

I turned on the tablet and, in big letters, my name appeared; YUUTA TESHIMA. Igarashi made a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a sigh and turned away when he saw it—it such a melodramatic display that it almost made me giggle.

The ElectroID went to a home screen, displaying a map of Hiroishiya and a few tabs; Profiles, Truth Bullets (which was grayed out), and Rules and Regulations. “Um, try clicking on Profiles,” Futabatei advised. “I think that shows details about everybody. Maybe there are things we haven’t found out yet.”

I clicked on Profiles just as Futabatei told me to, and immediately I was met with a profile for myself. Everything seemed to be in order—my name was correct, my height was on-par, my birthday was the right date—but below all of that I saw that it displayed my mysterious title again.

“SHSL Reformer….” Futabatei gave the words a considerate look. “Yes, that seems to fit…When something is going in a way you dislike, you always try to change it for the better, don’t you? I wonder if that’s what the title is referring to. Either way, it’s a very pretty title.”

“Sensible, pretty, or not, it still doesn’t make any sense. Even if I _did_ get the title because I can turn a bad situation on its head—apparently—I don’ t understand how that skill would be impressive enough to give me a free pass to Hope’s Peak. Anybody can do something like that.”

Igarashi returned to us and looked over my profile with a dour disposition. “Reformer, it says…somehow, I find myself unsurprised.”

“What do you mean by that? You’re the one who told me what my title was in the first place,” I pointed out.

Futabatei seemed intrigued by this information. “Is that so? I wonder why he would know right off the bat…maybe his memory loss affected a different part of his memory than it did for us. Igarashi, what did you forget?...if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Though I’ve forgotten most things about you and our classmates, I remember everything about my research prior to going to Hope’s Peak… _and_ everything I learned about _you, Yuuta Teshima._ ” Igarashi gave me a pointed glare that made my skin crawl uncomfortably. “So although my memory loss is less all-encompassing than yours, it still exists to some degree. Perhaps I just got lucky again….”

“I see…” Futabatei looked like she wanted to pull a notepad out of her dress to write this down, but in the absence of such a notepad, she decided to nod along instead. “Does that mean that you know what Yuu’s title means?”

“I have some ideas, yes,” Igarashi answered. Something about the stoic expression on his face made me uncomfortable. “I won’t be sharing any of them with you two, though. Only bad things could happen then. I’ll let you try and decipher your fate on your own.” With that, he excused himself from the conversation and joined the other students as they inspected their ElectroIDs.

“Well…don’t worry about it, Yuu,” Futabatei said, trying to impart some confidence onto me. “It’s not that big of a deal. There are things more important here than titles. After all, my title says little to nothing about what I’m actually good at. I may be a popular barista, but I’m also a title-worthy psychoanalyst…probably. For example, I think that Igarashi is antagonizing you because he sees something in you that he wishes he had in himself. Like your charming awkwardness and your overwhelming good looks, for instance.” Even though Futabatei smiled at this, it was hard to tell whether she was being sarcastic or not.

“That…makes sense, I guess.” It was hard to take Futabatei’s assertion seriously when I couldn’t find a trait in myself that anyone else could admire, but I had to appreciate her efforts. “I feel like there might be more to it than that, though. Who knows?”

“If we’re meant to figure it out, we’ll figure it out,” Futabatei assured me. “And if we don’t, then it was never that important to begin with. Anyway, have you seen Shinozuka since yesterday? I’m worried for him. After what happened during Monokuma’s presentation, I was afraid that he might pass out.”

“I’m pretty sure he did.” When Futabatei mentioned it, I was overcome by dread at the memory of Shinozuka’s panic attack. He’d been so calm and rational compared to the other members of our class up until then, but in that moment, his demeanor changed completely. “Maybe we should ask Erizawa about it. He should be the last person to have seen him. Where _is_ Erizawa, anyway? I haven’t seen him yet.”

My question was immediately answered when the doors to the kitchen opened to reveal Erizawa, who was holding a tray with plates of bacon and eggs on it. “I finished making breakfast, everyone,” he announced proudly. “Feel free to have as much as you want. There’s a lot of food in the cellar.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you were making breakfast, Erizawa,” I commented.

“I want to make myself useful however I can. I don’t want you guys to toss me out with the trash.” Though Erizawa was smiling, his face reddened more with every word that came from his mouth. “I’m not strong enough to fight a culprit or stubborn enough to argue with anyone, but I _am_ a really good cook. So, I’ll put that talent to work however I can to make sure that everyone stays healthy and strong.”

“Thank you, Hisoka!” Ootomo jumped out of her seat to trap Erizawa in a tight hug. “You’re the best!”

Erizawa’s happy expression immediately became strained as he tried his best to keep the tray from falling onto the floor. “Oh! No, uh, _thank_ you, Miss Ootomo, but you really don’t need to hug me this hard!” he squeaked. “I think you’re breaking my ribs…!”

“Feel free to call me Miho if you want.” Erizawa guffawed anxiously when Ootomo winked at him. Somehow, her affection for Erizawa seemed less false than her affection for everyone else. _“I guess they’re getting along pretty well, then…Either that, or Ootomo has a thing for stay-at-home dads,”_ I thought, not entirely jealous of the young girl’s attention.

We all gratefully took up Erizawa’s offer of breakfast and thanked him as we sat down to eat. There was room for us all to sit at the larger round table in the center of the dining room, but Igarashi sat in the far corner of the room to eat instead; I chose to attribute it to his normal level of weirdness and decided not to let it ruin my good mood. While I was eating, though, I noticed that we were missing a few people; Sugita was noticeably missing from the table and we still had no idea where Shinozuka was. This meant that Erizawa was left with two extra plates which were given to Mitsukuri upon her request. “Where are Sugita and Shinozuka?” I asked the table.

“I saw Sugi-chi sneak outside earlier,” Shimizu offered. When I saw that her plate was already empty, I decided to attribute it to sideshow magic rather than entertain the thought that such a small girl could eat so much food so quickly. “She swore at me and called me a lot of bad names when I asked her what she was doing, so I didn’t find out.”

“She’s probably out smoking again.” Fujita took a careful bite of her eggs, not appearing too hungry from the size of her portions. “Poor child…she’ll kill that cute voice of hers before she knows it.”

Tajima gave a deflated look to the doorway leading to the foyer. “And Shinozuka’s not around, either—y’think he’ll be okay?”

“He’ll have to come to terms with it eventually. I mean, he can’t just lock himself in his room and hope that all of this goes away,” Nonaka said. “But this is just as I predicted yesterday before we met the bear. I said that Shinozuka was unlikely to take the revelation well, didn’t I?”

“He’s not just ‘taking it badly’,” Kajiwara contested. “There’s clearly something wrong here. I think we should check on him to make sure that everything is okay.”

“Wait, what do you think happened to him?” Ootomo’s cheerful demeanor seemed to diminish to nothing as she spoke. “You don’t think he’s…?”

The shadows under Kajiwara’s eyes became slightly more pronounced. “There’s a chance. Please, can someone go knock on his door? Preferably someone with some _tact_.”

Uehara and Ebina both stood at the same time, Ebina yelling “Aye, aye, captain!” as she did so. Upon realizing that there were two volunteers, they both exchanged looks. When Ebina finally relented with an “Er…after you, sir”, Uehara ran out of the dining room as quickly as his legs could carry him. Shortly after he reached the foyer, we heard a loud ‘thump’ followed by a subdued groan. Erizawa gave the doorway a thoughtful stare as he nibbled on the bacon in his mouth.

“He can’t give up now! We’ve barely gotten started!” Mitsukuri cried, clenching her robotic fist dramatically. “I won’t let him lose to this situation! We can save him without a doubt!”

“And if that doesn’t work, then I don’t know why staying locked in his room would be a bad plan. He’ll need to come out to get food, sure, but he should be safe if anybody decides to go ax-crazy.” Hano shrugged as he downed a generous helping of orange juice. 

“But we already told him that there’s no reason for it. I told everyone that yesterday.” Futabatei’s worried frown made my heart race. “Can’t someone tell him that everything will be alright? I’ve already analyzed all of you and I can definitively say that no one here is going to go ‘ax-crazy’. Even if there are some suspicious characters, none of you would be likely to harm anyone else.”

“You’ve made up psychological profiles for all of us in the short time we’ve been here?” Kajiwara gave Futabatei a strong look—the display looked strange to me, seeing such a pointed woman glare at such a soft person as Futabatei. The two of them almost looked like night and day compared to each other; one was hyper-cautious about the situation and planned for the worst while the other used circumstantial evidence to look at everything through rose-colored glasses. “I need to see them right away. This is very important, Futabatei.”

“I’m sorry, Kajiwara, but that would break my code of client confidentiality,” Futabatei replied. The sound of her voice carried an obvious sentiment of regret. “Unless I suspect that someone is planning something… _uncouth_ , I can’t disclose the information I’ve collected to anyone.”

“So you’re going to wait until something goes horribly wrong to give us the evidence we need…” Kajiwara adjusted her glasses without removing her glare from Futabatei. “I see.”

Moments later, Uehara returned to the dining room with a small limp—it was easy to tell that he’d stubbed his toe against something in the foyer in his rush to get to Shinozuka’s room. “He’s not coming out of his room. I can’t tell if he’s in there or not, but the door is definitely locked.”

“If he wouldn’t come out of his room even for _you,_ then we’ll need a whole crowd of motivational speakers to convince him to come out.” Though Mitsukuri’s words were grim, a smile crept its way onto her face soon after. “…It’s a good thing that I’m awesome at motivating people, then. Shinozukaaaa—!”

We watched with surprise as Mitsukuri sprinted out of the dining room screaming Shinozuka’s name…only to be interrupted by a prominent ‘thump’. The familiar groan that followed it almost made Erizawa choke on his bacon as he tried to hold back his laughter. “Kajiwara, do you really think something could be wrong with Shinozuka? Like… _wrong_ wrong?” I asked the colonel, who turned away and lightly pushed her half-full plate forward.

“It’s just as I said. We can’t know right now. Considering the circumstances, though, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure,” Kajiwara answered.

Futabatei nodded exuberantly. “Right! Even if he’s not hurt or anything, it would still be better for him in the long run if he was among friends he could talk about his problem to.”

“That’s a…sugary way to put it, but you’re not wrong. I would appreciate it if he was here with us rather than fighting this feeling alone. But in the more physical sense, there were many opportunities wherein he could’ve been hurt. For example, Erizawa could have harmed him in some way when he took him back to his room yesterday.”

“What? Me?” Erizawa froze in place at Kajiwara’s accusation as he was about to pick up her finished plate. “Why would you assume I’d do something that terrible? I hardly even know Mr. Shinozuka.”

“But that’s exactly the point. Shinozuka hasn’t been able to bond with anyone here yet because he’s either been lurking around out of sight or hiding in his room this entire time. Even _you_ wouldn’t have enough love for him to ensure his safety, so killing him would be easier for you to accomplish than killing any of the people in our class who you’ve already bonded with. And if you locked the door after you…well, then, we’d never find his body. And in the absence of a corpse to investigate, we wouldn’t go to trial and you would get away with it scot-free.”

“Then what would be the point? I read the rules. We can _only leave_ if we get away with it in the trial. If there isn’t one, then killing him and leaving his body in a locked room wouldn't do anything but try on my conscience and give me a headache.” Erizawa put a hand to his head as if the thought of getting a headache was giving him a headache.

This took me aback. “Rules? What rules?”

“Why, the rules under the Rules and Regulations tab of your ElectroID, of course!” I was shocked by the sudden voice behind me, but I yelped and fell out of my chair when I turned and saw that it belonged to Monokuma. Ootomo screamed louder than a dentist’s drill and grabbed Nonaka’s arm. “What, didn’t you take a look at the thing past the home screen? What kind of a poor excuse for a technology-age brat _are_ you? Go ahead! Boot it up and give it a look!”

I wrestled the ElectroID out of my pocket like Monokuma told me to and turned it on to see the same greeting as before, but then I noticed the tabs Monokuma was speaking about at the top. Besides the map and the profiles I’d already found, there were two more that I’d forgotten to look at: Truth Bullets (which was still grayed out) and Rules and Regulations. Wanting to appease the vengeful Monokuma, I clicked on Rules and Regulations and read through them all. “'1: Leaving the grounds of Hiroishiya without being properly despairified is prohibited'…as if we could do that anyway.”

“Spare me the sass, Teshima. Just read it normally for once,” Monokuma complained. “In fact, why doesn’t everybody help the poor guy? He’s floundering up here!...or, down here, I guess. You comfortable there on the floor?”

Though my cheeks turned red, I was too concerned by the thought of Monokuma hovering over my shoulder to sit in my chair again. “…I guess so.”

“Well, anyway. Onwards and upwards.” Nonaka cleared his throat and prepared to read the next rule as Ootomo stared at his screen with large eyes. “‘2: Nighttime lasts between 10 pm to 7 am—announcements will be made at both times. Particular rooms will be sealed off during these times, so exercise caution.’ Can I ask _what_ rooms will be sealed off?”

“Wander around in the middle of the night and find out. It’ll be much easier for someone to sneak up and stab you in the back then.” Monokuma winked at Nonaka, but instead of responding in any way, Nonaka just frowned and looked back to his ElectroID again.

“‘3: No patient can go without seeing another patient for more than twenty-four hours.’” Fujita made a motion as if she were adjusting invisible glasses to see the rule better. “Well, _that’s_ a strange rule. Don’t you think things would be _better_ for us if we had more time to bond with each other?”

Monokuma was seeming to take too much joy in the questions he was being asked. “Yeah, of course. It’ll make things more despairful when you die.”

“ ‘4: All patients must carry their ElectroIDs with them at all times during daylight hours.’” Ootomo looked like a kindergartener who got her pudding stolen as she stared sadly at Nonaka’s screen. “Okay….”

Ebina blinked twice at the next rule as if trying to clear tears from her eyes. “‘5: Any individual patient who kills another patient and becomes the ‘culprit’ has proven themselves to be well enough to leave Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center, but may only do so if they can get away with their crime in a class trial’…not to sound improper, but that’s sort of a…bummer.”

 “‘6: Culprits who are caught will be punished severely for their crimes, and all living patients must witness their punishment unless they too wish to be punished.’” Kajiwara glared at Monokuma. “You bastard. I see what your plan is.”

“Hey, you can’t just appropriate my language like that, you saucy bitch! How dare you?” Monokuma shouted. “Whaddaya know about this situation that I don’t know about _you_?!”

“Hold on, Kajin, we’re missing the really scary one!” Shimizu cried. “‘7: Additional regulations may be added as necessary’! How terrible!”

“Even if you’re joking, Shimizu, that _is_ the most daunting rule…” Uehara looked so disappointed that he could have cried. “The idea that more horrible ones like the ones before it could come into existence later _is_ terrible.”

Once we read all the rules, out of curiosity, I tried to click on Truth Bullets…though all this gave me was an angry beep in response. “You fucking moron! You can’t click on the Truth Bullets tab until there’s an investigation going on!” Monokuma scolded me. “I mean sure, that stupid kid in his room is about to get himself punished, but you don’t have to investigate that.”

“Wait, what?” I stormed onto my feet. “What do you mean, Shinozuka’s about to get punished?”

Monokuma sighed. “Do I really have to point you in the direction of the rules _again_? Didn’t you see the third rule? You can’t go without seeing any other patients for twenty-four hours! It’s still early in the morning, but in—oh, I don’t know, three hours?—he’ll be in violation of the rules!”

“O-Okay, we’ve got time’ta spare, den…” Tajima sighed and wiped the sweat off of his forehead.

“Not if he doesn’t open his door!” Ootomo screeched. “Toshi…!”

“Well, here’s a free tip for you bastards just because I’d rather see one of _you_ kill that kid before I have to punish him on the first day, “ Monokuma offered. “You dumb fucks’ve been knocking on the door for, like, fifteen minutes now!”

Hano raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“The bedrooms are soundproof, you ninnies! He can’t hear you! Use the buzzer by the knob! If he doesn’t come out to that, then he’s too far gone.”

Just as Mitsukuri was about to dash back into the room to tell us about her lack of success, she nodded and sprinted back to Shinozuka’s room. I followed her this time, wanting to see for myself that Shinozuka was okay. It was almost a little amusing seeing Mitsukuri’s panicked face as she tapped on the doorbell repeatedly, but the seriousness of the situation kept me from smiling until Shinozuka’s door finally swung open. I felt a surge of relief flush over my body when I saw that, besides heavy bags under his eyes, pale skin, and a nervous hunch to his shoulders, he appeared to be doing well. “Shinozuka!” Mitsukuri exclaimed, suddenly wrapping Shinozuka in a dangerously tight hug. Other than making a noise that sounded similar to a pig whose tail had been stepped on, Shinozuka barely reacted. “How dare you make us worry like that?! You could’ve died!”

“What…?” As Mitsukuri finally released him, Shinozuka looked to me so I could clarify.

“We got these things called ElectroIDs this morning,” I explained as best as I could. “There were a bunch of tabs on the home screen and one of them listed the rules. Apparently we’re not allowed to go without seeing another patient for 24 hours or else we’ll be punished. I don’t know about ‘dying’, per say, but….”

“W-Wait, has it really been twenty-four hours…?” Shinozuka looked to the watch on his wrist and frowned when he remembered that it didn’t work.

“Well, almost. Monokuma said that you were about three hours away from breaking the rules.”

Shinozuka’s eyes widened. “He came back?”

I nodded solemnly. “Yeah, it seems that things are pretty serious now. Everything he said yesterday about ‘mutual killings’ and escaping Hiroishiya is listed with the rules. And with all the monitors and cameras around, it seems like he’s always watching.”

Shinozuka looked to the floor with a desolate expression. “Oh…maybe I shouldn’t have come out after all.”

“Nonsense! Everybody loves you! How could anyone think of hurting you?” Mitsukuri pinched Shinozuka’s cheek with her robotic hand before realizing his pain and quickly thinking better of it. “Er, sorry.”

“It’s not _myself_ I’m worried about. Everyone here is so great and nice…If anything happened to anyone, I don’t know what I would do. I can’t imagine a Hiroishiya without any of these people.” Shinozuka hugged himself and sulked as Mitsukuri fought back tears. “I don’t care what happens to me. I just don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”

 _“But he just met everyone yesterday, didn’t he? And he didn’t play any of those teambuilding games with us, either, so he should still be a stranger to a lot of our classmates. I wonder why he’s so attached to them.”_ I considered this for a while before speaking again. “Well, don’t worry, Shinozuka. We’re working hard to make sure that nothing happens…I think.”

“‘I think’?” both Shinozuka and Mitsukuri questioned at the same time. “You can’t be so wishy-washy at a time like this, Teshima! You’re awful!” Mitsukuri scolded me.

“S-Sorry, sorry! I just, well…um…” I tried to think of any evidence that could suggest we were taking the situation seriously. “…Kajiwara’s really taking it upon herself to make sure that everyone stays safe, you know. She’s the one who sent us to make sure you were okay. She was worried that Erizawa did something to hurt you last night.”

“E-Erizawa? No way! He’s so compassionate…he probably couldn’t even hurt a spider.” This only further depressed Shinozuka. “I want things to be safe, b-but I don’t want it to be a _witch hunt_ ….”

“Then what _do_ you want?” Mitsukuri put a supportive hand on Shinozuka’s shoulder, but her tone didn’t sound convincingly sympathetic to go along with the action.

Shinozuka put his head in his hands. “I-I don’t know…I guess I just want everyone to be happy. But in a place like this that’s run by a demon….”

“Don’t worry. I will _definitely_ protect you,” Mitsukuri vowed. “That ‘demon’ can’t control us! We aren’t bugs resting under his heel! We’re human! Humans can defeat robots any day, especially when they have a human engineer on their side! I could probably short-circuit that bot in my sleep! Isn’t that right, Monokuma? Why don’t you try showing up to intimidate _me_ , huh? I’ll fry your motherboard in a second!”

“M-Mitsukuri, don’t taunt it!” Shinozuka wailed. “What if it actually shows up?!”

“Mitsukuri, all you’re doing is scaring him now. Maybe you should stop,” I suggested.

With a sigh, Mitsukuri finally relinquished her grip on Shinozuka’s shoulder—based on the way he rubbed it afterwards, I assumed that she had it in a vice. “Sure. But don’t be scared, Shinozuka! We’ll definitely get through this together!”

Even though Shinozuka still appeared skeptical, he nodded. “Well…okay. I think I can make myself believe that. What are you guys up to right now…?”

“We’re at breakfast. Sugita didn’t show up, but other than her, everyone’s there,” I answered.

“Even Igarashi?”

Though I wondered for a moment why he was so worried about Igarashi, I eventually remembered him mentioning the way he recognized Igarashi the day prior. “Uh, yeah…he’s sitting separately from everybody else, but he should still be there.”

“Futabatei, too?”

The mention of her name made my cheeks flush. “Uh-huh…Futabatei showed up, too.”

“Okay, good…hopefully there’s enough for me to eat too.” In a nice, happy group, we headed back to the dining room…though I had to wonder about the success of our mission. _“Even if Mitsukuri is apparently a master motivator with her heart on her sleeve, it doesn’t seem like she’s good at feeling the atmosphere or thinking about other people’s emotions,”_ I thought. _“Maybe she hasn’t had to attend to anyone like that before…but I guess I’m one to talk, considering_ my _performance.”_

When we returned to breakfast, I noticed with a sinking heart that Igarashi had disappeared without a trace from his lonely table in the corner of the room…but no one seemed to notice him leave. Instead, we joined in their conversation as they concerned themselves with his current absence. “I can’t imagine what that boy must be up to, sneaking off like that all the time,” Fujita remarked. “I may have to follow him one day just to see where he goes.”

“It would be better if you sent Shinozuka to do it for you,” Hano said. “With that whole ‘no presence’ thing he has going on, he’d probably make for the perfect spy.”

“H-Hey, don’t you think that would be an invasion of his privacy? What if he wanders off to do something personal?” Shinozuka argued. When a lot of the people seated at our table began to look at each other and snicker, his cheeks turned red. “Hey, stop it! I’m serious…!”

After we finished our nice, filling breakfast, I decided that it would be a good idea to speak to Futabatei about the dream I had that night. I’d meant to bring it up at the table when I could discuss its meaning with everyone, but people like Nonaka and Fujita who would try to twist the dream’s meaning into something else prevented me from feeling comfortable with that plan. Once the dining room was empty save for me and her, I approached her.

“Hey, I—”

“You know—”

When we both started speaking at the same time, we both clammed up and looked at each other. “You had something important to tell me, too?” Futabatei asked. “That’s weird. I wouldn’t have predicted that from the way you were holding yourself around me earlier. But whatever it is, it’s probably more important than what I have to say. You should definitely go first.”

After a moment of hesitation, I spoke. “Er, well, you remember that dream you said you had the other day? Where you saw everyone on the bus and recognized me as Yuu?”

“Yes, certainly! I’m glad you brought it up, actually!” Futabatei clapped her hands together and flashed a huge grin. “Why, did you—?”

“Have the same dream?” We both finished at the same time. “Uh, yeah,” I answered. “I was on the same bus I dreamt I was on yesterday, but this time, I could see you. I called you Chou, you called me Yuu, and we talked about ‘the place we were going to’ and ‘what we were leaving behind’.”

“‘I have hope. I’m sure we’ll be fine. We’ll be back in no time.’” I was shocked when Futabatei started reciting word-for-word the things I heard us say in the dream. “‘But do you think it’ll be alright? The place we’re going, I mean?’ ‘I think so. Nothing could be as bad as what we’re leaving behind.’ Am I ringing any bells?”

My body was almost frozen over from shock, but I forced myself to nod. “Y-Yeah, that’s exactly what we said…How did you—?”

“Believe it or not, I had the same dream again last night. I was able to talk with you this time, though, which was great. I think I saw everyone else on the bus, too, but they were sitting far away from us. Toshi was sitting near the front of the bus, but he looked really troubled….”

“W-Well, what do you think this means? My dreams definitely can’t tell the future, so how could we dream about the same thing?”

“Hm…you may not like this, but I’ve been sitting on a theory for a while.” Futabatei chewed on her thumb as she looked up and away to think. “I’m beginning to think that my dream may not have been a vision into the future. And it would make sense, wouldn’t it? It’s just like Toshi said yesterday. We must’ve gotten here _somehow_ , so I guess we used the bus. And the way we worded things in the dream made it sound like we were coming here to escape something going on at the school. Though I’m not sure how we could’ve gotten so close prior to riding that bus…we knew each other by our first names, but Toshi was sitting in the front while we sat in the back and, according to all of the evidence we have so far, we were sent here before we started to attend school together.”

“How do we know that, though? I don’t remember how we came to that conclusion.”

“If I recall…Igarashi said something yesterday about us being sent here as ‘despairs’ before school started. He was talking about how strange it was that we were sent here as people ailing from ‘despair’ before we even entered the school.”

“So the way it’s looking, there are two possibilities. From the way he spoke, Igarashi made it sound like there was something about Hope’s Peak which would make us despair if we stayed there—so possibility one, we were sent away from Hope’s Peak because something was wrong with the school that would have put us in danger. But the more _realistic_ conclusion to come to is that Igarashi knows more than us and he’s lying about all of this to trick us or something.”

“But what reason would he have to deceive us? We know that his memory loss is less total than ours—or that it at least affects a different set of his memories—but how much could he possibly know about our situation?”

“Now, then…you _do_ know that it’s in bad taste to speak about someone behind their back, right?” We both jumped out of our skin when we heard Igarashi’s voice behind us. Turning to face him, he looked none too pleased by our post-breakfast rendezvous…though he looked a bit more curious than he did angry. “If you’d like to ask me about something, then you could always ask me directly instead of whispering conspiracies back and forth to each other.”

This made me frown. “I have a feeling that you wouldn’t answer us if we asked you these questions.”

“Well, you’d be right, but that’s beside the point. How can you be sure that conspiracies and betrayals like this weren’t the reason why Hope’s Peak became inhospitable for us? If you both knew any better, you would be treating this situation as an opportunity to remake yourselves into citizens of hope that can prevail through despair’s challenges…but instead, you’re rolling in despair like pigs in muck. As if I should have expected anything different….”

“For a man who claims to know everything about hope,” Futabatei argued, “the things you say sound really despairful. How do we know that _you’re_ not the reason why we’re here now?”

This accusation seriously seemed to take Igarashi aback. “How _dare_ you?! I find you both conspiring against me in secret and you have the audacity to accuse _me_ of being in the wrong for chiding you? What kind of warped reality do you think we live in? Honestly!”

“If you really want to clear your name for us, you could start telling us the truth,” I suggested. “Did we ever attend Hope’s Peak before we came here?”

“Think about it—if your pea-sized brain will let you. School began in April. The bear implied yesterday that it’s early September. There are people with pre-established friendships in our class—your friendship with Futabatei included. So what does that seem to imply?” Igarashi refused to look at me as he spoke in a tone befitting an uppity junior high school student speaking to a child.

“But if we went to school before, why did you try to imply yesterday that we never went at all? You said that we were labeled as despair ‘apparently before we even began to attend Hope’s Peak’ and sent here. And if we’ve been here any longer than two weeks, then you lied about finding that sign-in sheet yesterday. So then, which one’s the lie?” I questioned.

Igarashi appeared totally enraged by the idea that I was questioning his authority. “It was a slip of the tongue. Since I couldn’t _remember_ what happened in those first few months of school, I failed to mention them. I must’ve slipped into a Western way of thinking and assumed that we started in our fall term. You’ll have to forgive me for saying in an instance the sort of stupid thing that you say every time you open your mouth.”

“That’s an ad-hominem attack, you little brat,” Futabatei spat. “Grow up and tell us what you know about this situation. The more we know, the sooner we can get out of here.”

Igarashi’s face turned pale at Futabatei’s minor outburst, but he forced himself to speak. “Well… we went to Hope’s Peak together before—of course. You both knew each other fairly well, as did everyone else who recognized another individual here. And from what I’ve been able to put together, my original observation of our situation yesterday is fairly sound. We were labeled ‘despairs’ and sent here accordingly in order to recover, but clearly something has gone awry now.”

“But you implied yesterday that the problem was with Hope’s Peak, not us,” I pointed out. “Which is it, then?”

“How do you expect _me_ to know? It should be fairly obvious, but I don’t have a memory either. I didn’t even remember my name before I found my ID in my pocket. I remember nothing of our school lives or my own life. All I remember is our classmates’ names… and _you, Yuuta Teshima_. You can profile me to verify my words, Futabatei, but I think you’ll find that I’m not lying. It was only through detective work that I could put together the details of my name and title. I still don’t know anything else about who I am.”

 _“That doesn’t help much with the ‘why is Igarashi so strange?’ question, does it? How awful…if even_ he _doesn’t know why he’s like this, then maybe we’ll never find out more.”_ “I see…so rather than forgetting the past and everyone else, you forgot the past and _yourself_? That’s interesting…and it lines up well with the information I’ve collected so far,” Futabatei observed. “Though I have to wonder why you’re the only person afflicted by that kind of amnesia…maybe your brain is just wired a different way than the rest of us.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” I muttered to myself. “But anyway, Igarashi, I guess we don’t have any reason to doubt you. You can’t be doing much scheming to benefit yourself if you don’t have any idea who ‘yourself’ is…but I have to wonder, if you remember all of our classmates, then do you remember what kind of past you had with Shinozuka? He mentioned recognizing you yesterday, so maybe talking to him could give you some help….”

“We’ve spoken since then. I’m sure that he’s mistaken in his memories.” There was almost something mournful about Igarashi’s tone as he spoke, as if he was speaking of a dead person rather than a person who he could go talk to whenever he wanted and leave us alone. “I don’t remember a thing about him. He’s a ghost to me just like he is to most everyone else in our class.”

“Really? That’s a shame…he was pretty worried about you at breakfast earlier. I assumed that he had something important to talk with you about. If you two could have learned anything new about your relationship with each other that could’ve helped the rest of us put the pieces together, then it would’ve been a big help.”

Igarashi froze, his mouth agape, but he forced himself to gain his composure somewhat when I took note of his surprise. In an almost heartbroken voice, he asked, “He was concerned for me? …Maybe there’s something I’m forgetting, then.”

“Maybe he was so close to you that he was more of a ‘part of you’ than an outside individual, “ Futabatei theorized, “and when you forgot everything about yourself, you forgot everything about him, too.”

It was shocking when Igarashi let himself frown very visibly for the both of us. “I…see. I have to admit, that’s more than a bit heart-rending…I may need to investigate this topic further. Thank you, Futabatei.” With that said, Igarashi ran off—presumably to speak with Shinozuka about this new development. His obvious exclusion of my name in his thank-you barely even registered with me in the moment.

Once I was sure Igarashi was gone, I began to speak. “Well, that just makes me wonder…if Shinozuka got along so well with Igarashi, then how did we ever get along with him? If Igarashi has always hated me as much as he seems to now, then it seems impossible that we could share a mutual friend.”

Futabatei considered this only very briefly before clapping her hands together. “Well, it doesn’t matter. The past is the past. For now, we need to focus on finding our way out of here together. Then we can reclaim the memories we lost on the way here and try to make sense of that stuff. So to aid in that, I think I’m going to take a nap.”

“A nap? This early in the morning? But you’ll ruin your sleep schedule,” I commented.

“I’ll be fine! I have complete control over when and how I fall asleep. I’ve been training for years now so I can try to unlock the secrets of my subconscious mind,” Futabatei exclaimed. “Anyway, I’ll be sure to report back to you if I see anything interesting in my dreams! I’ll see you later, Yuu!”

As Futabatei left the room with a carefree swing to her hips, I couldn’t help but let my eyes trail after her. _“That girl really is something…”_ I thought. _“I can see now why we got along so well at Hope’s Peak. She’ll be a great person to keep by my side going forward if I want to try making any sense of the mysteries surrounding this place.”_


	6. Chapter 1 - Daily Life (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teshima continues trying to get along with his classmates and facilitate hope as despair looms over the horizon of Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center.

With newfound confidence in our current state of affairs, I began back to my room so I could ponder what I would do with the rest of my day. When I reached the hall, however, I was nearly run over by a frantic Ebina approaching from behind. “Ebina? What are you doing?”

“A-Ah…” Ebina seemed too rushed to attend to me, but she hurriedly saluted me as she decided that running away would be too rude a response to my questions. “I-I’m only performing necessary reconnaissance, Teshima! There’s no need for your concern!”

“Reconnaissance?” I asked curiously. “Okay…But why? Who asked you to do that?”

“I have been ordered not to tell!” Ebina shouted immediately, an answer which made alarm bells go off in my head.  

Before I could question her further, I heard a familiar voice—Kajiwara’s voice—shout to her from down the hallway: “Ebina, please be quick! We can’t afford to waste time now!”

Ebina seemed conflicted, before she cried, “My apologies, Teshima, but I must depart! I hope we may speak again at another point in time!” and sprinted off down the hall and into Kajiwara’s room. _“I wonder what they could be doing in there…Maybe Kajiwara’s busy hatching some sort of escape plan for us. After all, she seems to know a lot about what might be going on here.”_

When I returned to my room, I pondered what I should do with the rest of my day. We still had some daylight left before it would become evening, so I had the opportunity to…go to bed and get some rest. Considering everything that was going on, I felt like I’d need as much sleep as I could get.

(If Teshima were any other protagonist, he would have used this opportunity to embark on a free time event. However, for now, he’s too shy and awkward to approach someone so forcefully. So we’re out of luck.)

I returned to my room later that evening, tired from the day. I didn’t feel as if I really did much, but I felt better about things overall. Most of the despair I’d accumulated that morning was evaporating, and instead I had a lot of hope. Yes, it would be just like Futabatei said…We would escape, and we would do it without anyone dying. When our class appeared so infallible and unilaterally united in the cause of spiting Monokuma, there was no way that anyone would bend under his rules!

Just as I was about to decide what to do then, the monitor over my bed turned on, displaying Monokuma still sitting at a doctor’s desk. “Attention, patients. It is now ten PM. The front entrance is now locked, and accessing the front lawn of Hiroishiya—among other locations—is strictly prohibited. Until morning, despair well! Goodnight!”

The monitor shut off again, and I felt myself getting infinitely more tired by this announcement. It took me a few minutes to prepare myself for bed, but just when I was about to climb into bed to sleep, I heard my doorbell chime. Though caution flickered through my mind for a moment, I finally decided to open the door.

To my pleasant surprise, I saw Shinozuka standing in my doorway—based on his slightly-hunched shoulders and the way he had his hands pressed into his pockets, I could tell that he was still as nervous as he’d been the last time I saw him. “Hey, Teshima,” he greeted me in a quiet voice. “Um…mind if I come in?”

“Sure. You can sit on the bed, if you’d like.” The instant after I stepped aside and shut the door after us, Shinozuka moved towards the bed without a sound and sat down. His expression only became more strained as I sat beside him. “So, what’s up?”

“Teshima...” It looked like every word that came out of his mouth hurt him, but the words sounded natural coming from him. “…You just got murdered. Your body got left in your room sitting on the bed just like you are now. Since no one has an alibi considering the time that the murder occurred, everyone’s a suspect. The culprit was careful not to leave any evidence behind that could implicate themselves, so we can’t pick out one person who’s more suspicious than anyone else. We lose, and despair wins.”

I was shocked to hear such a gruesome monologue from him. “H-Huh? Shinozuka, what’re you—?!”

“I was trying to be pretty straight-forward, but it still seems like you didn’t get it…” His teal-colored eyes were trained steadily at the floor. “You need to be more careful, alright? I could have been a person who wanted to hurt you, and you let me in your room and closed the door after us. You didn’t even have the door _locked_ when I showed up. Excuse me for being morbid, but I’ve seen cases like this before, Teshima. I-It’s like you’re…” He trailed off, his eyes looking misty. “…It’s like you’re asking to get hurt by leaving yourself this exposed.”

“B-But nothing’s going to happen. Didn’t we establish that already? No one’s going to kill each other, so—”

 “I just want you to be a _little_ more wary, alright? You trust Futabatei when she says she can see the future, so trust me when I say that I can see a different one. It’s just like Nonaka was saying yesterday…if we let our guards down and convince ourselves that everything is fine, then we’ll…we’ll all end up like I did yesterday…and that’s if we don’t die first. I can tell that you’re hiding things and trying to trick yourself, but it won’t help, alright? This _isn’t_ all okay. I realize that now, and I want everyone else to realize that before anything bad happens. I-I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anyone here got hurt because I wasn’t there to warn them.”

“But Shinozuka, everything _is_ going to be alright,” I said. “We’re going to get out of here. We just need to put our hope in that.”

“You’re right, we need to hope for that, but we can’t let that get in the way of our _common sense_. No one here really remembers anyone else. Even if we’ve ‘bonded’ lately, we’re still strangers, aren’t we? And it happens all the time in the crime shows I watch…we think we know someone, but they turn out to be completely different in the end…and we don’t know it until we’re lying dead in our bathtubs and the investigators are scratching their heads trying to figure out what happened.”

“Where is this coming from?” I asked him quietly. “Shinozuka, you were so carefree on the first day. But now…”

“You _saw_ what happened to me when I learned the truth of the situation. I can’t keep living with a blindfold over my eyes. That demon is really, _really_ dangerous, Teshima. He’s going to find a way to make us hurt each other whether we like it or not. All we can do is hope that the first hit our class takes won’t be the worst.” With that, Shinozuka stood up and left my room without so much as a goodbye.

I felt like I had entered into an entirely different world as I closed the door after him and sat on my bed—though I didn’t make a note to lock it after he was gone. _“Shinozuka…that revelation yesterday really changed him,”_ I thought. _“I hope he’ll be okay…I feel like I still know so little about him, even if we recognized each other. And his relation to Igarashi…I don’t want to intrude on his personal business, but I think there’s something worth investigating there. It’s impossible to think that we could’ve had a mutual friend….”_ Before I could ponder things for much longer, I fell asleep, feeling more conflicted and confused about everything now than I did when I was awake.

 

I woke up the next morning to the same morning announcement from Monokuma I’d seen the day prior. My mind was still swimming a bit, but I managed to get it in order as I left my room to head to the dining hall for breakfast which, as I assumed, would become a daily thing. On my way, I ran into Tajima in the foyer, looking excited. “Man, Erizawa’s cookin’ was great yesterday!” He exclaimed. “He’s such a great kid, cookin’ for everybody like dat…I can’t wait’ta have more’a  his food!”

“Yeah, his food _was_ pretty good yesterday,” I said, thinking on the bacon with a smile. “I think we can expect some more food from him today, too. There’s a lot of food in the cellar and he seems determined to make himself useful.”

“I know! I’m so pumped!” he said. “His cookin’s even better den my big bro’s, and _he_ went to cookin’ school!”

 _“Yikes! That seems like a bit of a backhanded insult to your brother,”_ I thought to myself as I carried on into the dining room.

The ensemble gathered looked much the same as the one yesterday had been, except that Igarashi was now absent as well. “I know that Sugi-chi still wants nothing to do with us, but I wouldn’t think that _Igarin_ would miss breakfast like this…especially since breakfast was his idea, anyways,” Shimizu commented. “You don’t think he’s sick or anything, do you?”

“If he was getting sick, you’d think we’d have noticed sooner than this,” Nonaka reasoned. “Plus he seemed fine yesterday, so…”

“Maybe he’s away investigating Kajiwara’s and Ebina's strange alliance while they’re bound here by his breakfast plan,” Fujita suggested with a calm smile. Kajiwara and Ebina’s expressions both shifted somewhat at the accusation.

“Yeah, does anyone know what’s goin’ on wit all’a dat? I saw Ebina runnin’ around like a crazy person yesterday tryin’ to do all sorts of weird stuff,” Tajima said. “She was documentin’ everythin’ in the cellar, tryin’ ta count all da chairs in here…hell, I tink I even caught her tryin’ ta stalk me at some point, and when I caught her she pretended like it was nothin’ and ran away.”

“If you want to know, you could just ask us. Don’t gossip about us as if we’re not here.” Kajiwara took a casual sip of her tea—which I assumed that she brewed for herself since Erizawa was still cooking in the kitchen.

“Alright, fair enough, colonel,” Hano said, looking as if he had just proudly accepted a challenge. “What’re you both up to that’s so suspicious that Igarashi’s looking into it now?”

“It’s confidential business not to be spoken of in polite company unless an individual is at risk of injury or death!” Ebina announced, bumping the table when she jumped to answer for Kajiwara.

Kajiwara regarded Ebina with a slightly perturbed air, but she didn’t refute her words. “Though she could have put it more delicately, she speaks the truth. Our mission is secret, but we’re sure that it will benefit the class greatly. And if Igarashi is indeed investigating our mission, I think that he’ll come to the conclusion.”

“If it’s supposed to help us, then why is it a secret?” Ootomo questioned. “That just seems dumb.”

There was cold death in Kajiwara’s eyes when she answered. “It’s so that no prospective culprit can sabotage our plans and use them to his or her advantage in order to plot a murder. If we add anyone else’s suggestions to our idea, then we risk such a thing taking place.”

“But how do you know that Ebina’s not going to betray you and use the plan to _her_ advantage?” Nonaka asked. “It would be the classic switcheroo, made even more potent if _you_ were her chosen target.”

“Though I see where you’re coming from, Nonaka, I can easily trust Ebina with my life without any fears.” Ebina appeared shocked to hear this, but Kajiwara continued. “She, as she is now, works as a proxy through which I can receive intel and statistics from. If I bid her do something, she’s been trained to do it. Although I hate using her dependent nature in such a way, I would attract a ridiculous amount of attention to myself if I acted alone—thus inviting most prospective culprits to choose me as their target simply because of how hard I’m working for our class’s sake.”

I tried to understand this, but Kajiwara’s language went right over my head. “…What?”

“She’s saying that if she didn’t have Ebina there to ‘do her dirty work’, she might be targeted by a culprit who wants to remove her from the equation since she’s starting to take charge around here and make things safer,” Futabatei explained to me. Once she was sure that I understood, she turned to face Kajiwara. “On that note, while I respect the hard work you’re putting into this, don’t you think it’s a little McCarthyist? You’re starting to install yourself in a position of power here by making everyone fear that there’s a culprit among our numbers, and while that might scare ‘culprits’ out of committing any crimes, don’t you think that it takes away our freedom as well? I think it would be better if we just trusted each other without having to worry about who could be a culprit and what they’re ‘plotting’.”

“I would like to do that, Futabatei, but you have to understand how impossible it would be,” Kajiwara argued. “The only way to keep a crime from happening is by making it clear that no crime _can_ happen. If we keep our guards up and set up special provisions to keep tabs on everyone in class—therefore eliminating the idea that a culprit could commit a crime without being caught—then no crimes will be committed. If we just reject the notion that a crime could ever happen, then we’ll be caught with our metaphorical pants down if a murder actually _does_ occur. Do you understand?”

I froze when I found Kajiwara’s words familiar to me somehow. Where had I heard rhetoric like that before…? “You know, it’s pretty weird that Shinozuka’s missing again,” Mitsukuri commented once it seemed like Kajiwara and Futabatei were in a stalemate. “Are we gonna have to drag him out of his room every morning? _That’ll_ get old fast.”

 _“That’s it!”_ I thought, suddenly remembering Shinozuka’s gruesome warning from last night. “Guys, I think there’s something wrong with Shinozuka,” I said. “He came to my room a bit after the nighttime announcement last night and gave me a really gruesome speech about how I’d be murdered if I let my guard down and leave the door unlocked.”

“Oh, dear….” Uehara deferred his sad glance to the ground. “I wonder why he would do a thing like that….”

“Though poorly delivered, I think he has the right idea. He’s right to be cautious like that…however suspicious it may come off,” Fujita commented. “A lot can happen to you if you’re not prepared for the worst possible outcome. It’s like Kajiwara is saying—we’ll be caught unawares and subverted in the trial. We mustn’t go gently into that good night. We must rage, rage against the dying of the light…as it is.”

“But if we’re all going around accusing each other of being murders and spreading fear, then where can we be safe? Are you saying that we should fear for ourselves no matter the environment or circumstances just because there’s a miniscule chance that something bad could happen?!” Mitsukuri questioned. “What kind of lives would be living, then?”

“We needn’t expect it, but we have to be ready for it in case it happens!” Ebina argued. “We don’t _want_ it to, but we have to entertain the chance that it _might_ and set up precautions to thwart it!”

“But why do we wanna be scared of each other all the time? How’re we supposed to be friends if we’re suspicious of everybody…?” Ootomo whimpered.

“It’s important to have friends, sure, but you won’t be able to _keep_ those friends if you don’t take care to stay safe,” Nonaka said. “Rule number six of slasher films; the people who deny the monster’s existence are the next ones to get dragged into the wine cellar by Jason Voorhees.”

“No, don’t tell stories like that!” Hano cried out, giving the wine cellar door a scared look. “The nerdy ones like you always get picked off early on! You’re jinxing it!”

“Listen, it’s just _stupid_ not’ta keep our doors locked and ta go wit people when dey wanna ‘talk in private’ in our rooms, alright?! I did da special effects in some’a dose slasher films dat Nobu’s goin’ on about and I _know_ what happens to da guys who go along wit’ the killer wit’out a hitch!” Tajima cried.

As everyone in class continued debating back and forth about how careful we should be in the face of a possible murder, Erizawa came out of the kitchen. “Breakfast is ready,” he announced—but upon realizing the uproar Kajiwara and Futabatei caused, he took back his words. “Or…should it wait?”

“Well…even if we can’t agree on how strict our safety protocol is,” Uehara said, “at least we can agree on one thing; food would be much appreciated right now.”

Everyone seemed to consent to this stalemate as we took a break in order to eat breakfast. I found myself lacking in any appetite the entire time, however, as I thought about Shinozuka. _“He’s not technically breaking the rules by not showing up,”_ I thought, _“but I’m still concerned about him. Where could he be?”_

When we’d almost finished breakfast, the doors to the dining hall swung open to reveal an unexpected figure standing in the door. A great amount of confusion came to me, and I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. “S-Shinozuka!?” I questioned incredulously.

There Shinozuka stood, smiling as calmly and as confidently as he had been on our first day. “Good morning, everyone,” he greeted us all amicably. “Sorry I’m late. I got a little hung up trying to find my ring.” He showed us a silver ring embedded with a big, smooth ruby, holding it up to the light so it could glimmer along with the UFO-shaped pin and rabbit-shaped pin on his gakuran. From this angle, we could see the skull hologram within the gem.

“You seem to have recovered quickly,” Nonaka observed a bit suspiciously. “What’s with the new change in attitude?”

“I slept off a lot of my stress. Had some pleasant dreams…you know, the usual.” He shrugged the question off, which seemed to annoy Nonaka.

“But Shinozuka, you—” I began, before Shinozuka shushed me.

“Everything’s fine now,” he ensured us. “I’ll be at breakfast every day from now on. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

“G-Good…” Ootomo murmured, smiling up at him. “I was really worried, Toshi…”

“But still, this is a too radical a change coming too suddenly. Something fishy has to be going on here,” I said obstinately. “Last night, you—!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shinozuka said with more assurance. “The past is the past. Now then, Erizawa, I hope you cooked enough for me to eat too.”

“Of course. I want to be of use to _everyone_ , after all.” Erizawa hurried to the kitchen with an anticipatory smile as Shinozuka took a seat at our table. Hano and Nonaka scooted out of the way to accommodate him, both looking slightly terrified and pretty suspicious.

Conversation continued as usual from there, but I was too involved in my own thoughts to add much. How could Shinozuka have changed his attitude so fast? Last night he was talking about how I could’ve died and how he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything bad happened, but there he was, talking on as if it had never happened. _“Shinozuka…”_ I thought concernedly. _“…Where is this change_ really _coming from?”_

The question was eating me up, so I decided to approach Shinozuka after breakfast ended and everyone had begun to leave. “Shinozuka, this change is really sudden. Are you sure it’s…healthy?” I asked him concernedly.

“Yeah,” he said calmly. “It’s all in the ring, see?”

“But that ring…there’s no way that it alone managed to help you get better right away,” I said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No, that’s _enchantment_.” Shinozuka looked unbelievably excited to tell me the story behind the gaudy ruby ring on his finger. “Y’see, I had this ring given to me by an enchantress at a convention my sister and I went to once. I got it for 60000 yen; a steal, right?”

 _“A steal from_ you _, maybe,”_ I couldn’t help but think.

“Anyway, she said that she blessed it with a special charm; ‘if you ever feel great emotional distress, the spirits will eat it and replace it with bliss and luck’,” Shinozuka said. “And it carries a special sentimental power because of the memories I’ve stored within it. All in all, it’s easily my most prized—and most powerful—possession. That’s why I didn’t tell everyone about it in any detail earlier. I was afraid that someone would steal it and use its powers for evil.”

“Wait, but if you’re still thinking like that, then it hasn’t done anything. You’re still as wary as you were yesterday,” I pointed out.

“That’s true. The ring can’t get rid of that feeling, but it _can_ help with the anxiety. I’m just glad I found it, really. That’s why I’ve got this big grin on my face even when there’s nothing here worth smiling about.” Even as Shinozuka spoke about negative things, I could hear the positivity in his voice. “It eats the negative energy—but since the charm’s power is bound to run out eventually, I can only wear it sparingly. I don’t want it to get broken.”

“But you really _do_ need it, don’t you…?” I wasn’t buying the whole story, but true to his words, wearing the ring definitely made a marked difference in Shinozuka’s mood.

“Yep. I’m feeling better already, now that I’ve found it.” Shinozuka smiled, but it was still restrained somewhat. “So, uh, sorry about that whole situation last night, but…you know I still mean it, right? Just backspace through all of that melodramatic ‘death and dying’ stuff.”

I hesitated before deciding to answer, “…Well, either way, I’m glad to have you back in a stable state.”

“I’m glad, too…but before we go about our day, I want to get serious again. Just for a second.” Shinozuka’s expression shifted somewhat into a more somber appearance. “Like I said, this ring is really powerful. I’m still trying to find out what it can do and how it does those things. So I wanted to make you this mystery’s godfather. If anything happens to keep me from investigating it myself, then I want you to wear it instead. You’re the only person stable enough to test out its powers.”

“If anything…happens?”

Shinozuka’s brows inched closer together. “You…You know what I mean. Just promise me that you will, okay? This is really important to me. ”

“Well…sure. I’ll try to keep anything bad from happening to you if I can, but if anything bad _does_ happen, then I’ll definitely wear your ring for you.”

Upon hearing my confirmation, Shinozuka smiled again—the expression warmed my heart. “Thanks, Teshima. I know I can always count on you. So then, let’s try to make this day count, okay?”

“Yeah, of course.” I smiled as Shinozuka and I left the dining room together…only to run directly into a giggling Fujita.

“What were the both of you talking about in there?” she cooed. “It seemed quite intimate.”

“Nothing like what _you’re_ thinking,” I said immediately.

Shinozuka’s good mood appeared to evaporate in an instant. “Leave us alone, please….”

“Really? Somehow I don’t believe both of you.” Her laugh made my cheeks burn. “You know, it’s only natural. Poets have been writing about your sort of relationship for decades. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“S-Stop being so inappropriate! Can’t we have a conversation without being bothered?” Shinozuka questioned. “A-And how come you don’t make innuendos like that when anyone else has a private conversation?”

“And yet you _still_ keep up the charade? How charming,” Fujita said teasingly. “I won’t judge the both of you. Just know that, if your secret is exposed in an unpleasant way, it will have always been better to have told us all of your love from the beginning. I don’t appreciate being withheld from the truth.” She gave us a final smile before leaving.

“What was that all about?” I asked Shinozuka. “That last bit almost sounded like a threat….”

“Uh…” Shinozuka looked like he had something to hide, but he kept his mouth shut. “…I don’t know. I guess she was just being weird. So, then…see you around?”

“Yeah, definitely. See you, Shinozuka.”

Shinozuka gave me a calm wave before leaving. Meanwhile, I went back to my room, the details of everything that had just happened still spinning in my head. _“Surely Fujita doesn’t really think that Shinozuka and I are…dating…does she?”_ I questioned constantly. _“I really hope she doesn’t mention this to everyone else, at least…That would be really embarrassing for both of us. I think all of the negative energy that would give Shinozuka would ‘break his charm’. But speaking of that charm…I wonder why he’s so convinced that something bad is going to happen to him. And if something bad really_ does _happen, will I really be able to live up to the promise I made to him? Could I really master the ‘powers’ of that ring if even the SHSL Occult Club Leader couldn’t?”_


	7. Chapter 1 - Daily Life (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teshima continues trying to get along with his classmates and facilitate hope as despair looms over the horizon of Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center.

After I finished speaking to Shinozuka, I realized that there was still enough daylight left for me to have some time to myself.

I returned to my room promptly after that, but upon doing so, the monitor above my door turned on to display Monokuma. Though he sat at his regular doctor’s desk and I had every reason to suspect that I would be seeing the nighttime announcement, I was surprised when he said something markedly different. “Everyone, meet up in the foyer immediately for a special announcement! And trust me—you really don’t want to miss it.” Giving us a suggestive wink to sign off, Monokuma’s visage disappeared from the monitor.

 _“Special announcement? What could this be about…?”_ I thought to myself as I began down the hall. _“It sounds like it could only be bad news….”_

On my way, I happened to run into Sugita. “Whoa, it’s a surprise seeing you milling around here suddenly,” I remarked. “What’ve you been doing?”

“Avoiding all of _you_ morons. You’re just going to get me killed in the end.” Sugita picked at a frayed end of her scarf. “I’m only here now because our kidnapper summoned us. I really don’t want to hear whatever announcement this shit bear has for us, but he makes it seem like we don’t have much of a choice.” She sighed heavily. “It’s a waste of my time…just thinking of all the better things I could be doing right now makes me want to sever that asshole’s circuitry with my needles.”

“I don’t think Monokuma would appreciate that very much,” I pointed out.

“Who cares? _I_ don’t appreciate being held here against my will with only two packs of cigarettes and hardly enough yarn to get me through a week,” Sugita sneered. I decided that she wasn’t going to get any nicer anytime soon, so I decided to leave her and head to the foyer.

When I got there, I saw that there were already quite a few people gathered there. I could already see a curious box on the balcony overlooking the foyer. Though it was hard to tell from a distance, it looked like it was either an overturned milk crate or a soap box. “What’s this? What’s this?” sang Shimizu curiously. “It looks like a box! Is it magic?”

“Aw, hell. I've gotta _bad_ feelin’ about dis,” Tajima said worriedly.

“Same here. This situation is super ominous,” Mitsukuri agreed. “If that bear’s here to give us more rules or something, then I know it can’t be anything good.

One by one, everyone else filtered into the room. “Well, this is upsetting,” Igarashi said. Though he sounded relatively aloof, he had a serious expression on his face while he glared at the box on the balcony. “Everyone, prepare for the worst.”

“Sir yes sir!” Ebina cried, saluting him until Kajiwara had to ask her to stop.

Once everyone was assembled, the lights in the foyer turned off again and spotlights, again, illuminated the platform overlooking the foyer. There was a poignant _boing_ sound effect as Monokuma crashed down onto the box. Somewhere in the crowd, I heard Tajima gasp at the sudden noise. “Hey, you bastards!” cried Monokuma with a flourish. “I hope you’re ready for an _amazing_ announcement!”

Igarashi sighed beside me, now seeming more annoyed than worried. “What do you want now, Monokuma?”

“You’re all in for a special treat today,” Monokuma said. “Ooh, I’m feeling nostalgic just _thinking_ about the good times I had with this!”

“Just shut up and tell us, you shitty bucket of bolts!” Sugita shouted.

“Hey now, no need to get your panties in a bunch! Or should I say, your lack thereof?” Sugita looked more enraged and embarrassed than I’d ever seen her before. “Anyway, what I have for all of you today is a nice, juicy _motive_! Exciting, huh?”

“A motive?” asked Mitsukuri. “You don’t mean a motive for _murder_ , do you?”

“Of course I do! What else would I mean?” Monokuma laughed.

“Shit,” Mitsukuri muttered. “So _this_ is how you’re gonna get us….”

 “On with the show, though! All of you have some particularly nasty secrets, don’t you? Well, lucky me, I just so happen to _know_ a bunch of them! As such, I’ve devised a very—shall we say-- _interesting_ system in order to reveal those secrets to the public so that we can avoid rehashing the same gimmick I pulled last time!”

“Oh, no…” Erizawa murmured. “Our secrets…?”

“Yep! I have one deep, dark secret about all of you, but I’m not gonna tell you what it is. Instead, your secret will be given to someone here at random for them to find out about. From there on, they have a choice; they can either keep the secret about you to themselves, or they can announce it for all of your classmates to hear at any given opportunity!” Monokuma exclaimed. “Call it unoriginal if you want, but it’s a classic! And lemme tell you, in _this_ game, it’ll be the gift that keeps on giving. But you’ll see what I mean by that later, _wink_.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Fujita said. “What would stop us from spouting out all the secrets at once?”

“That’s where the _intrigue_ comes in, my dear bastard,” Monokuma said with a wink. “If you’ve got a serious secret that you don’t want anybody else knowing, then you’ve got to get to the kid with your secret before they can spout it out in front of everybody! I’ll tell you who’s got your number, so you don’t have to worry about tracking them down yourself. Of course, whether they’ll expose  you or not depends on the person, but if you _really_ wanna make sure that your secret remains under wraps, then you could always…you know…” Monokuma made a throat-slitting motion with his paw.

“But what if we go to the person who has our secret and ask them to tell us what it is?” Futabatei asked. “Then we can judge its severity ourselves and tell them whether or not they can present it to the class.”

“An astute observation! Too bad I already considered that.” Monokuma giggled. “Nope! If you’re gonna pop the lid, you’ve gotta do it in front of _everyone_ all at once!”

“What’s the usefulness of _that_ rule? What do you gain from putting it in place…?” Uehara wondered.

“The bastard…If we want to reveal any secrets, we would have to go around telling everyone that we’ll be revealing someone’s secret…including our secret’s holder. It’s a provision meant to put us in danger if we decide to say anything,” Kajiwara reasoned. “It’s a recycled concept, but he’s crafted it into an almost foolproof motive. Damn….”

“But we could just keep mum about everything,” Hano asked, “right? We don’t _have_ to reveal anyone’s secrets if we don’t want to. And if it’s just gonna draw attention to us and put us in danger, why would we do it?”

Monokuma’s grin seemed to widen. “I think you’ll be surprised by the nature of some of these secrets. There are a few that I think your class might find…well… _vital to survival_.”

Everyone shuffled around uncomfortably, but nobody said anything. “This is stupid,” Nonaka complained. “Nobody has a secret big enough to kill over. We’re high school students, not criminals.”

“Au contraire, my dear despair,” Monokuma said, waggling his finger. “As you’ll learn when the secrets are distributed tomorrow morning, some of you have _crazy_ secrets. Seriously, some of them are even messed up by _my_ standards! I mean, with secrets like these, I couldn’t _not_ recycle this old concept! But it’s up to you to decide whether you want to let everyone know the truth so they’ll stay safe or keep it to yourself and let everyone find out the hard way! Upupupupu!” With that, Monokuma disappeared with a boing, leaving us all confused and worried.

“I was expecting much worse,” Igarashi said. “Surely none of us have secrets large enough for this to be an adequate motive. And if any of us do, it would just be better to keep them secret to stop the spread of despair and unnecessary conflict.”

“I like that idea better,” Shimizu noted.

“Agreed. So, are we clear? No secret is great enough that it should be shared with the class at large, I’m sure of it. Now then,” Igarashi said, beginning towards the dorm hall, “we need to get some sleep for tomorrow. It’ll probably be a hectic morning. We’ll need all the rest we can get.”

There was a long pause before anyone said anything in response to this plan. “For once we can _agree_ with him on something,” Sugita remarked. “Let’s get this motive shit over with so the game can actually start. The sooner all of this boils over, the better.”

“You’re misunderstanding the situation. The motive isn’t going to cause any murders if we can help it,” Kajiwara said. “Letting this mutual killing game begin is the worst possible idea.”

“Aren’t you the one who’s been championing the idea of ‘no one is safe, always watch your back?’ You should know better than anybody that something’s gonna happen because of this motive. We can only look out for ourselves now.” Sugita left a heavy mood in the air when she headed back to her room with her hands in her pockets.

“Y’guys, I don’t wanna freak anybody out, but I have, like, a _lotta_ secrets,” Tajima admitted. “How’m I supposed’ta sleep at night if I don’t know what my secretholder’s got on me?”

“It seems like your life of crime is finally catching up with you, huh?” Nonaka asked jokingly. “Maybe you shouldn’t have killed so many ladybugs.”

“W-Wait, is that actually illegal?!” Ebina looked like she could scream.

No one else seemed to want to correct Ebina on this, so we quietly filed back to our rooms in a nervous huddle. I wondered briefly how Igarashi had managed to boss our class around again, but it wasn’t as if we didn’t want to go to bed. Exhausted after spending so much time with my classmates, I needed to return to my room and recharge for the long day ahead of us.

The nighttime announcement came on uninterrupted when I entered my room, and I went to bed alongside it. The worry about what kind of secret Monokuma planned on telling someone about me was only an afterthought as I fell asleep.

 

I later woke up to the same morning announcement, feeling a certain routine beginning to sprout up already. _“Just to think; someday, when I’m safe at home, that announcement will be weirdly nostalgic,”_ I thought a bit optimistically.

Beginning to get used to the slightly-earlier-than-I’d-like morning announcement, I left my room to head to breakfast and immediately saw that all of my classmates were assembled in the foyer. They whispered amongst themselves and looked up at the balcony with intrigue, where I saw that the same box Monokuma put there last night was still present. I approached Tajima as he milled around nervously in the back of the group and asked, “Hey, what’s going on? I thought we weren’t going to tell any secrets.”

“Dat colonel chick changed her mind about de whole ting. She’s sayin’ dat we should announce secrets like dis every mornin’ so that none of us have anythin’ to hide anymore. Since we all go to breakfast and/or like hearin’ some good gossip, it’s ‘foolproof’. So if none of us have secrets, den nobody can kill over dem. But man….” As was clear from his shaking hands and constant movement, he had something to hide that he was worried about having revealed. “People are _linin’ up_ to start announcin’ ‘em! You’ve gotta do sometin’!”

 _“That reminds me. I must have someone’s secret on my ElectroID_ ,” I thought. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing much I can really do…I mean, I haven’t even checked my ElectroID to see who has my secret. They could be up there, for all I know.”

“Me too! I don’ even remember who Tamaki Sugita _is_ , dude, is she up dere? Shiiiiit….” Tajima looked close to crying as he stared at the line forming at the bottom of the stairs.

Observing the line, I could see that Sugita, Shimizu, Mitsukuri, and Fujita were lined up to reveal other peoples’ secrets. I gave Tajima an apologetic look. “Sugita’s the one with the scarf. Sorry, Tajima.”

“Ahh, noooooo! I tink I know which one it’s gonna be, too….” Tajima looked like he was about to tear his hair out.

Before anyone in line could step up to the box to announce a secret, Kajiwara stepped forward to address all of us. “I’m sorry to embarrass a few of you like this, but this is necessary to our survival. It’s regrettable that we can’t all reveal our secrets at once—as, like Monokuma said, some seem to be more serious than others—but letting some truth into the air should help us trust each other more. After all, if all of the secrets are revealed and someone _is_ murdered, then we can be sure that their killer was most likely the person whose secret they held. To begin, I’ve invited the beautiful Sachiko Shimizu to the plate to reveal _my_ secret.” Even if Kajiwara was trying her best to keep a straight face, it was obvious that she was worried about the blow her reputation would take after the unknown secret’s reveal.

Shimizu bounded cheerfully up to the box and did a mid-air spin to land on it. After she posed and a few nervous people in the back of the crowd clapped, she whipped out her ElectroID, spun it around  a few times, then pulled up the secret with a smile. “According to this,” Shimizu said, smiling between her ElectroID and the crowd below her, “Kajiwara likes to dress up as Princess Manta from the anime _Manta Sea Mania_ and roleplay as her when nobody’s looking!”

Everyone began to laugh, myself included, as Kajiwara’s face flushed red under the gloved hand she brought up to cover her face. “M-My god, how humiliating…I didn’t think anyone knew about that….”

“Oh, come on, Kajiwara. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Mitsukuri called over from the line. “Even _if_ Manta’s one of the worst characters.”

Kajiwara shot a surprisingly venomous glare to Mitsukuri. “…I’ll pretend I didn’t just hear that. A-Anyway! Shimizu is saved from any culprit’s plans. Let’s continue.”

Shimizu giggled and did a little dance as she went down the other set of stairs, allowing Sugita to climb the stairs and reach the box on the balcony. Tajima clenched both my arm and Nonaka’s arm as Sugita cleared her throat dramatically and smirked at him. “‘At some point in time, Hideaki Tajima was offered fifty yen to do something—” Her face turned somewhat red and she smiled more “— _extremely_ NSFW…and did it!’”

Tajima cried out and toppled over from shock into Uehara’s surprised arms. Nonaka, too, almost fell over…laughing. “Fifty yen? You can find that much on the _street_ , you fool!”

“Ah-ah-ah. You may not want to call people fools just yet, Nonaka.” Mitsukuri stepped onto the balcony right after Sugita with a catty smile on her face. Nonaka gulped. “A- _pparently_ , ‘in a lot of his older videos, Nobuhide Nonaka was known to wear platform shoes and stand on phonebooks hidden out of frame so he would look taller.’ Am I sensing some insecurity there? Could you maybe be _compensating_ for something?”

Nearly the entire class burst into laughter again as Nonaka became irritated. “I had to do it, alright? All of my American viewers kept making fun of how short I was. All of the comments I ever got were based on my height back then.”

“Maybe you should’ve talked about something more interesting, Nonaka,” Hano joked. “Then they wouldn’t have been so hung up on your height.”

“Shut up, shortstack! You have no room to talk.” Nonaka, red-faced, pressed a hand down on Hano’s head to figuratively and literally suppress him as Fujita danced up to the box on the balcony.

 _“_ Ah, all of that is nothing compared to the juicy tidbit that _I’ve_ come upon, though.” Fujita smiled happily at her ElectroID before she began. “A little birdie told me that ‘ Mr. Toshi Shinozuka has little to no romantic interest in girls.’…though there was plenty of empirical evidence to suggest that much already, _right_ , Shinozuka?”

The only sound in the foyer was Fujita’s giggling as everyone exchanged awkward glances at this new information.

“Hey, I didn’t want anyone to know that....” Shinozuka looked sick enough to pass out. “Fujita, I thought you said that you’d keep it secret....”

“I lied. It was too good to pass up.” Fujita only continued giggling as Shinozuka covered his mouth with his hand and staggered backwards. “I’m sorry, dear, but don’t you remember what I said yesterday? ‘If your secret is exposed in an unpleasant way, it will have always been better to have told us from the beginning’. And I _do_ hate secrets.”

“It’s like you knew the motive from the beginning,” Uehara observed. “Fujita, what’s the meaning of this...?”

Fujita finally stopped giggling and sighed, a complacent smile stuck on her face. “I received Shinozuka’s secret a bit early. I thought it strange, but I went along with it anyway. It _does_ make things a little more interesting, though, doesn’t it?”

“Karma’s going to get you back for this…probably.” Shinozuka looked totally defeated. “Who has Fujita’s secret? Can you go up and embarrass her next?”

“I’d rather not,” Erizawa murmured, his voice unusually timid. Since I noticed him then, I realized that he hadn’t made a noise throughout that entire sequence—he didn’t even laugh. “That wouldn’t be honest. I’ve already promised to stay quiet.”

“Thank you, Erizawa. You’re a true friend,” Fujita said with a smile.

Erizawa smiled awkwardly. “I-It’s no problem, Miss Fujita …I’d expect the same out of anyone else.”

“Now then, I’d say that’s enough.” I was surprised when Igarashi stepped out from the crowd and took Kajiwara’s place at its head. “That was fun while it lasted, but obviously Monokuma wasn’t lying when he said there were big secrets hidden within our numbers. Shinozuka didn’t deserve to be embarrassed like that and neither do any of the rest of you. So, to avoid any conflicts or crimes that could come about upon hearing of these bigger secrets, I demand that no further secrets be revealed while we are here at Hiroishiya.”

“As much as I would like to disagree with him…I have to agree.” Kajiwara shouldered ahead of Igarashi to lead the pack again. “I’m sorry for putting you through that, Shinozuka. I hope you can forgive me. I suppose I underestimated the magnitude that some of these secrets could have held.”

“It’s okay…I guess. It was probably going to come to light sooner or later anyway.” Shinozuka stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor with a forced smile. “But I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’s not like it’s life-threatening information or anything…it’s just a fact.”

“So, to avoid any discrimination or indignation between classmates, no more secrets will be told—just as Igarashi has said. Does that cotton with everyone?” Kajiwara looked between everyone in our crowd.

When nobody raised any objections, Erizawa shuffled toward the dining room. “Sounds great, then…I’ll go ahead and make breakfast now.”

“You do that, honey. Just try not to burn yourself on any of the burners. You never know what accidents might happen when you lock yourself in a kitchen.” Erizawa skittered away in an uncharacteristic panic while Fujita chuckled at her morbid joke.

As we all headed into the dining room together, most of us spoke of the secrets we just learned amongst ourselves.

“Don’t worry, Toshi. I could already tell that you didn’t like girls. You didn’t react to my hugs at all.” Ootomo bounced in and out of Shinozuka’s personal space with a supportive smile. “Maybe I can try to set you up with one of the boys here instead!”

“Uh…no thanks. I don’t really give too much thought to that sort of stuff, anyway. That’s part of the reason why I decided not to bring it up.” Shinozuka chuckled lightly, but it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about this topic anymore.

“My reputation went down the drain…!” Tajima screamed. “I’ll never be taken seriously again…!”

“Oh, that’s cute. You say that like people took you seriously to begin with, Tajima,” Hano retorted with a smile.

“I thought it was hilarious,” Sugita said, snickering. “If you want to complain, you can take it up with my needles…and so can that army dog with _my_ secret.”

“U-Uh…no thanks, I’m good,” Tajima said immediately.

“I don’t want to die!!” Ebina screamed, holding up her hands in surrender.

“Good—you’re both not crazy. That said, there’s no way I’m eating breakfast with you bunch of backstabbers. See you.” Without another word or wave, Sugita headed out the front door with an unlit cigarette in her hand.

“Well, at least there’s this; in the long run, the secrets that got revealed were really inconsequential…though Shinozuka’s was a little too confidential to tell to a bunch of strangers. I can agree to that.” Futabatei looked inquisitively at the ceiling as we moved into the dining room. “They’re only perceived as being ‘big deals’ because of the adverse attitudes toward them that we have ingrained into our society. Nonaka admitted that he only made himself look taller for all of those years because people on the internet were bullying him and Kajiwara’s secret is only embarrassing because she feared that everyone would look down on her for enjoying a show that was made for children. Meanwhile, even the two ‘serious’ secrets aren’t that important if you really think about it. We only perceive them to be important since those aren’t things that are necessarily accepted in our society. But in the long run, neither of those things really matter in a situation like this. At least they’re not mass-murderers or sociopaths, I suppose.”

As usual, Erizawa’s cooking was phenomenal enough that big eaters like Mitsukuri and Shimizu couldn’t seem to get enough. While they ate through their thirds and fourths, however, I finally checked my ElectroID to see that there were two new notifications. Beginning with the first one, I read;

“Chou Futabatei is so allergic to flowers that she’ll break out in hives when she comes into contact with them.”

I blinked at the secret, feeling scandalized now. _“Well, at least it isn’t anything threatening to Futabatei or her reputation…and at least I don’t have to worry that someone will embarrass her in front of everybody if I don’t condone it.”_  Once I was done gawking at her secret, I glanced at the second notification;

“The person with your secret is Akira Igarashi.”

My heart sunk into my chest as I realized the gravity of this revelation. What kind of secret could he know? I didn’t have many, but any secret that would be as embarrassing as the ones I just heard must be a terrible one. It might not be something I could remember anymore, if it was relevant to the Yuuta Teshima who attended Hope’s Peak. _“I’m just glad that he didn’t announce it to everybody else today,”_ I thought. _“Considering how much he hates me, I’m honestly surprised. Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought….”_

Breakfast ended without a hitch once we were stuffed to our fill, but after we had finished and started filing out of the dining room, Futabatei stopped me. Something about her disposition was noticeably changed from what it had been when the secrets were being read earlier. “Yuu, you’re the one with my secret, right…?”

“Yeah, but it’s nothing worth worrying about. It’s a small-time secret that I wasn’t planning on telling anyone.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I was really concerned. I hope you don’t think this is strange, but this motive really is interesting to me. Not that I want anyone to fall for it—I just have to wonder if Monokuma really gave our secrets out ‘randomly’. Anyway, thank you. I’ll get out of your hair now.” Futabatei smiled nervously and made her way out of the room without another word.

 _“She’s a bit more skittish than usual,”_ I thought. _“I guess she was just worried that her secret was about something major.”_

I went to my room uninterrupted afterwards and decided to use the rest of my remaining daylight to wind down and try to make myself more optimistic somehow. _“Will anyone else will be as jumpy as Futabatei was earlier?”_ I wondered. _“I guess everyone was right; some people_ do _have pretty big secrets. I just hope that nothing bad comes of it.”_


	8. Chapter 1 - Daily Life (Part 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teshima continues trying to get along with his classmates and facilitate hope as despair looms over the horizon of Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center.

Once my time by myself ended, I returned to my room to wonder what I should do with the rest of the evening. Right as I had come to a decision and was getting ready to leave, though, I heard my doorbell chime. I wasn’t expecting any visitors, of course, so I had to wonder what might be going on. The instant I opened the door, I was greeted to loud shouting. “Teshima! You’re needed in the auditorium immediately for a very important announcement from Kajiwara and Igarashi!” Ebina saluted so hard that I was sure she had just karate-chopped her skull in half.

“Wow, okay, no need to shout,” I said. “What’s it about?”

“Our long-term plan of survival and how we are meant to spend the days between today and our escape from Hiroishiya Rehabilitation Center!”

 _“So it’s relatively important, then…”_ I thought, mildly disappointed that I couldn’t skip the meeting and take a nap instead. “Alright, I’ll be there.”

“Great news! I’ll go tell the next person down the hall!” As Ebina went next door to Hano’s room to pound on his doorbell with a feverish zeal, I moved past her to get to the auditorium.

Though a few members of the class were missing when I first arrived, they soon showed up so the meeting could go under way. What with the serious expressions on Kajiwara and Igarashi’s faces near the front of the room and the flipped poster Igarashi was holding, I had to wonder what could be so important that they would call such a formal meeting together.

As I worried and fretted in my seat, I barely noticed Futabatei sit down beside me. “You look tense,” she observed—though I easily could have said the same about her earlier. She’d recovered seamlessly by then, but I couldn’t forget the concern I saw from her. “Is everything alright? Did something happen?”

“No, nothing like that…I’m just a little worried about whatever these two will have to say. They’ve been sparse for the last couple of days. I’ve only ever seen them at breakfast.” When Igarashi realized that I was looking at him, he crinkled his nose at me and turned away. “…Not to mention _that_ confusing situation.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Ebina said it was some sort of plan, right? Maybe the famous SHSL Tactician has finally devised an escape plan for us.” Futabatei smiled expectantly at Kajiwara, who shrunk a bit and tried to cover her face with her sleeve. This just made Futabatei giggle. “For such an assertive girl, she really has a prominent soft side…I wonder what she’s trying to hide.”

“That sounds a little...iffy. You’re not going to stalk her or anything, are you?” Though the question was somewhat joking, I had to be concerned about Futabatei’s apparent psychoanalytic abilities. What had she discovered about us that she vowed not to reveal unless anything big came up?

Futabatei laughed at this. “No, of course not! That would be a total invasion of her privacy. But I have a feeling that she’ll be here for a while. I’ll have plenty of time to figure out what she’s trying to compensate for, I think.”

That (somewhat ominous) promise aside, I directed my attention back to the stage when Kajiwara and Igarashi looked like they were about to begin their presentation.

Once we were all seated and quiet, Kajiwara cleared her throat and began. “Good evening, everyone. I’m glad that you’ve arrived. Let’s not waste any time, though; we have assembled you all here to establish guidelines for us to follow so we may avoid as many deaths as possible. I’m confident enough in my abilities as a tactician to promise that, if we follow these guidelines and don’t take any unnecessary risks, even the most obstinate murderer will be incapable of committing any crimes. So, without any further ado…with the aid of Ebina and Igarashi, I present what we call our ‘Steely Resolution’.”

Igarashi flipped the poster in his hand to show an intense diagram that made no sense to me. Kajiwara pointed to the complex poster with a smile. “As you can see, the resolution is simple. All patients must attend breakfast and dinner together, and any patient who does not follow this rule or who disrupts either meal will be scrutinized—that is to say, if anything happens, they’ll be our prime suspect. We’ll take roll at those meetings to make sure that nobody is missing and, if they are, we will immediately make a move to search for them. Furthermore, no one is allowed to leave their room during the span of time that Monokuma defines as ‘nighttime’; specifically, the time between seven A.M. and ten P.M when the front door to Hiroishiya is locked. Does that make sense?”

“Most definitely, Colonel Kajiwara!” Ebina shouted from the crowd, but Kajiwara gave her a frown that made her become quiet and take her seat again.

“Oh, come on.” Sugita stood up from her chair, looking prepared to walk out of the meeting. “This is bullshit. You can’t impose those restrictions on everyone. Since when were _you_ in charge? Just because you’re a pig doesn’t mean you’re any better than the rest of us.”

Kajiwara’s mouth was caught in an ‘o’ shape. “How dare you? You can’t embarrass me like this in my own meeting! S-Stop this!”

 “Feh, I’d like to see you try,” Sugita scoffed. “I’ll run a knitting needle right through your stomach. _Then_ we’ll see how well your ‘let’s avoid deaths’ strategy goes.”

“Kajin, Sugi-chi, stop!” Shimizu jumped up and grabbed Sugita’s arm to keep her from doing anything rash. “You two should be friends!”

“Stay out of this, you whore,” Sugita snapped, slapping Shimizu’s hand away from her arm. “She’s gonna pay for trying to tie down and threaten a Sugita.”

“You say that like your name is supposed to be well-known or scary or something, but nobody knows who you are,” Hano retorted, but his snappy comment was mostly lost in the drama of the situation.  

Shimizu didn’t miss a beat and grabbed at Sugita’s arm again, making the smaller girl hiss. “Sugi-chi, please! Stop trying to get into a fight with Kajin! You’re too little for this…!”

“Fuck off!” Sugita harshly shoved Shimizu out of the way and marched up towards Kajiwara, knitting needle in hand.

Just when it looked like she was about to stab Kajiwara and Kajiwara was about to redirect the blow, we were all shocked when Igarashi put himself between them and caught Sugita just before her needle could penetrate his skin. “SHSL Good Luck…” he breathed, even appearing surprised with himself. “Huh…I guess my title must be correct, after all….”

“Igarashi, please take control of this situation! I don’t know what I’ll do if my superior officer is killed by a half-pint bottle of milk! A full one, because she obviously didn’t drink any of it!” Ebina cried from the back—the only reason she didn’t move, I presume, is because nobody told her to do so. Shockingly, her underhanded insults didn’t seem to reach Sugita’s ears as she struggled against Igarashi’s surprisingly strong grip.

“The situation is under control, as far as I can see.” Igarashi fluidly avoided Sugita’s incoming flurry of blows, almost as if he was trained in the art of not being hit. “But Sugita could definitely stand to come down a bit. Perhaps she should take a rest.”

 Everyone was shocked all over again when, with a pinch to her neck, Sugita fell limply to the ground. Shinozuka gasped as if he’d just witnessed an act of witchcraft, but Igarashi seemed nonplussed as he caught Sugita in his arms and handed her to a ready Erizawa. Even if he was ready to help, however, he was still just as shocked about the situation as everyone else. “M-Mr. Igarashi, I don’t—”

“If you would, please take Sugita back to her room. Her senses should be returning to her soon,” Igarashi interrupted, trying to treat the situation as if it hadn’t happened. “Unfortunately, I think she’ll have to miss out on what I’ve planned for the evening…though I suppose that’s what she wanted anyway.”

Erizawa scurried out of the room with the small, violent girl in his arms as the auditorium burst into a flurry of conversation.  Kajiwara appeared troubled by the newly-raucous crowd in front of her as she hid her tormented face in her hand and headed towards the door. “I’ve been undercut at my own meeting…perhaps my father was right, after all.”

“K-Kajin!” Shimizu cried out after her, but it was too late—the auditorium doors shut decisively after the colonel. “I…I don’t understand what went wrong….”

Everyone only became louder as the drama thickened. “That’s a little more excitement than I was expecting,” Futabatei commented. “Do you think Sugita and Kajiwara will be okay?”

“Weirdly, that’s the least of my problems right now,” I answered. “I’m wondering how Igarashi did something like that. You know stuff about psychology, right? What was that?”

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.” Futabatei shook her head, giving Igarashi a curious look. “But it looked like he’d had a lot of practice when he did it. Maybe he’s had training….”

We were surprised out of our conversation—perhaps by the fear that we might be next on Igarashi’s pinch list—when the Luckster cleared his throat. “I don’t believe this meeting has been adjourned yet,” he said pointedly, though without noticeable malice. “Kajiwara had one more plan to present to you all before she had to hurry out of here. We thought that, to help foster hope and camaraderie, we should prepare a dinner together tonight. You could almost call it a dinner party.”

 “A dinner party?” Ootomo’s eyes lit up. “That sounds like a fantastic idea! I can bake a cake!”

“I-I can take care of the main course!” Erizawa burst red-faced into the room, clearly afraid that he would be excluded from these plans and seen as useless. He panted for a few moments with the clear intention of speaking again. “I’m sorry if I surprised anyone…but please don’t exclude me from these plans! I can help, too!”

“May I also help? I’m used to cooking meals for multiple people,” Uehara asked. “Perhaps I can take charge of the appetizers.”

“And I can take care of the refreshments. My evening coffee blends will be just the thing this dinner needs,” Futabatei added cheerfully. “And maybe Yuu can help me!”

“W-What? Me?” My face turned cherry red at her suggestion.

This made Igarashi’s smile fall into a frown. “Not in my kitchen, he won’t. I’ll be there to facilitate everything and keep everyone on task. You could call me the Head Chef. And with my authority as Head Chef, I forbid Teshima from entering the kitchen.”

“You’ll need to get over this petty bias of yours someday, Igarashi.” Futabatei gave Igarashi an almost-knowing look, as if she could tell from the look of his face that something bad may come of his hatred. “It’s bad for your health.”

“Maybe so, but today’s not going to be that day. I’m afraid to say this for fear of jinxing our dinner party, but tonight would be the most likely night for a culprit to try striking. As such, I don’t want to leave Teshima unsupervised in a kitchen. He may poison our food.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t do that!” I cried indignantly. _“I may not know how to cook, but I wouldn’t be_ that _bad at it!”_

“I don’t trust you.” The definitiveness of Igarashi’s statement made it clear that that was the last he wanted to hear of the topic. “But I digress. We should get started soon. I’ll also ask some willing volunteers to make sure Sugita and Kajiwara are alright so that nothing will happen to them, either.”

“I’ll definitely look after Sugi-chi,” Shimizu piped. “I feel like this is my fault, so I need to do something to make it up to her….”

“I’ll watch after Kajiwara,” Mitsukuri suggested. “I’m usually good with these sorts of things. I’ll try to talk some sense into her!”

Igarashi nodded. “Sounds good. So, since we have that squared away, I suggest we start cooking right away. The rest of you are free to do whatever you’d like until dinner is ready.”

“Okay! I think I want to help decorate the dining room,” Hano said cheerfully. “Is that okay, or do you _want_ it to be ugly and drab like it usually is?”

“Oh, certainly not,” Fujita remarked. “Please transform that dining room into an eating space we can be proud of, Hano.”

“I can keep watch over the dining room to make sure that nobody gets up to any mischief!” Ebina suggested.

“And Shuuji and I can start preparing the tables while Hisoka and Futabatei start cooking!” Ootomo exclaimed.

“Oh yes, speaking of which, my cappuccinos will probably be finished before the meal if I start right away,” Futabatei said. “But I’m sure no one would mind sharing some coffee with me before the rest of the ‘kitchen crew’ finishes cooking, would they?”

“Yeah! Dis night isn’t gonna suck after all!” Tajima cheered. “You’ve gotta make, like, a _million_ cups, alright?!”

Futabatei’s smile faltered somewhat. “I’ll definitely try, Tajima. Thank you. I’ll need to get my gloves first, though…I hate getting coffee grounds on my hands.”

As the kitchen crew—Hano and Ebina included, but sans Futabatei—left to go towards the dining room, Mitsukuri and Shimizu left to check on Kajiwara and Sugita in their rooms, and Futabatei ran to her room to retrieve the white gloves she usually wore while preparing coffee, the rest of us were left standing awkwardly in the auditorium.

“Well, now what? Should we just wait around, or…?” Shinozuka asked.

“I guess so,” I said. “I’ll probably just go around checking on everyone. What are you going to do, Shinozuka?”

“Oh-oh-oh, Shinozuka, you should come wit me!” Tajima exclaimed. “I have an idea! C’mon!”

“Um, okay?” Shinozuka seemed shocked out of his skin when Tajima suddenly grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the auditorium, giggling all the way.

“They’d better not be getting into any trouble.” Nonaka sighed. “I’m going to make sure that Shimizu isn’t pushing Sugita too hard. She should be awake by now, but Shimizu’s eccentric nature makes me worry that she’ll do something to get herself stabbed.”

When Nonaka left and I subsequently noticed that Fujita left me in the dust without saying anything, I realized that I was alone in the auditorium. “…Rats. I guess it’s up to me to find a way to entertain myself until the cappuccinos are done.”

I saw Fujita milling around in the foyer when I left the auditorium, so I approached her. “Mm, Erizawa’s food is so good on its own that I can’t imagine how good it may taste when there are so many promising collaborators,” she said. “I’m not much for food, but I find myself looking forward to this dinner regardless. Maybe it will remind me of home, even if the dining hall isn’t as extravagant as the one I’m used to.”

“What about the ‘party’ aspect of it? Or the ‘a culprit is most likely to try striking tonight’ part?” I asked.

“I’d like to see someone try and kill one of our beloved classmates while _I’m_ here to do something about it,” Fujita answered. “I’ll stop any prospective culprits right in their tracks. Mark my words.”

“I’ll try to trust you, I guess. Just don’t get up to any trouble yourself, alright?”

“Oh, who do you think I am? Hano? How silly.” Fujita chortled and I, not wanting to be around her anymore, left.

Once I was done being around Fujita, I went to the dining room to see Erizawa, Uehara, and Ootomo preparing the dining room for our dinner party by moving tables around. Hano was busy lying down placemats and dishes and humming some oddly familiar song to himself while Ebina stood sentry in front of the wine cellar.

I decided to talk to Hano since he seemed the least busy. “Oh, I’m sorry. I mustn’t look busy enough,” he said, quickly beginning to concern himself more with his work. “That’s the only reason why you came over here to bother me, right?”  

“Uh, no, I came over here to see how things are going. Not everyone’s here to insult you, you know.”

“I should be saying the same thing to you, Teshima,” Hano observed. “You’re the one who keeps bouncing from conversation to conversation without giving the other person any sort of closure. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

 _“Jeez! It seems like Hano’s not in the best mood right now,”_ I observed. _“Maybe it would be better if I left him alone. I guess decoration is serious business, considering his talent and all….”_

Deciding that any conversation I could try to have with Ootomo or Erizawa would probably go down the same way—and seeing that Erizawa had gone into the kitchen to start cooking, presumably—I went over to Ebina to ask her what she was doing.

“I’m standing sentry here to oversee everyone’s progress with the dining room!” She announced, saluting me. “I assume that that’s what Kajiwara would have me do if she wasn’t incapacitated in her room, so I’m following her theoretical orders religiously!”

“I see…Well, good luck with that.” _“Huh, weird…She must really know Kajiwara well now, after having spent this much time with her over the last few days,”_ I thought to myself. Seeing no other options from that point, I went to the kitchen.

Before I could do more than crack open the sliding door, I was stopped by Igarashi. He was clearly nervous about something, but I couldn’t tell what from the immediate picture I saw of the kitchen. As Erizawa slaved away trying to make sure that he had all of his ingredients, Futabatei prepared the equipment she’d need to brew coffee behind him. She smiled when she saw me, though I couldn’t say anything to her before Igarashi interrupted me. “We’re working in here. Go loiter somewhere else.” He slammed the door in my face, further annoying me. _“His weird rudeness towards me is really beginning to get me peeved,”_ I thought scornfully. _“He’s getting worried that people are going to betray each other here, but he only seems_ personally _suspicious of me. I have to wonder what I could have done to make him hate me so much…if anything.”_

I then went down the hall and met with Mitsukuri outside of Kajiwara’s room. “I tried ringing the doorbell, but she didn’t open the door or anything,” Mitsukuri reported. “What do you think this is all about?”

“She mentioned her dad earlier…but I don’t know what he could have to do with this.” Sighing, I tried the doorbell myself to very little avail.

“Hopefully she’ll be done in there before dinner starts.” Mitsukuri frowned at the door. “She had big plans for tonight, I think. It would be a shame if she missed everything.”

“That’s true…but on that note, you’ve been here the entire time, right? Did you see where Tajima dragged Shinozuka off to?”

Mitsukuri raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh, uh, no. Heh. Sorry about that. Yeah, I’ve been focused on this door for the last while. I’m _going_ to get her out of her room before the night ends! Mark my words!”

“You’ve just been staring at this door? You have no idea what’s been going on around you?”

“Come down from your high horse! When you say it like that, you make it sound like you’re doing anything better. You’re just wandering around uselessly! At least I’m _doing_ something!” Mitsukuri scoffed at me.

With the bitterness of Mitsukuri’s comment—which seemed oddly familiar—caught in my mouth, I decided to leave her be for a while. “Okay, well…good luck, I guess.” I awkwardly stumbled out of that conversation and headed in the direction of Sugita’s room. _“That’s a little concerning, though…I don’t know what Tajima wanted, but it’s weird that they’re still not finished yet.”_

When I got to Sugita’s room, I saw Nonaka and Shimizu huddled around the bed to block the little girl from view. With the opening of the door, both of them turned around hurriedly as if they were expecting Igarashi to enter. When she recognized my face instead of his, Shimizu smiled at me. “Teshin, good timing! Tamakin’s just calmed down a bit. Come look at the good job I’ve done!” Shimizu stepped out of the way to show me that Sugita was lying awake in bed, fuming.

“Don’t call me that,” she growled to Shimizu before directing her attention to me. “And _you—_ fuck off. Your face reminds me too much of that dead guy’s.”

“Dead guy? What dead guy?”

“Akira Igarashi, who else? The minute I get out of this bed, I’m gonna kill him.” The mature ferocity in Sugita’s eyes suggested that she wasn’t lying. _“But since when did I have anything in common with him?!”_ I questioned, feeling a bit insulted.

“I wouldn’t have too big a problem with that,” Nonaka said, “but you shouldn’t try to cause trouble tonight. Kajiwara and Ebina worked hard to put this dinner together. Killing Igarashi would spoil the mood.”

I didn’t think Sugita would respond well to this comment, but to my surprise, Sugita cracked a sort of grin at that. “Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right—can’t ruin the pig’s moment in the limelight…How’s she doing, anyway?”

“She’s locked herself in her room and she doesn’t want to come out,” I answered. “I think she’s upset because the meeting got out of hand.”

“Upset? That army dog can feel emotions? What’re you gonna tell me next, pigs can fly? Oh wait, _that_ one can.” Even if Sugita swore vengeance against Igarashi not too long ago, it was hard to remember that in the light of her improved mood. “I’ll go have a word with her.”

When Sugita moved to get out of bed, Shimizu caught her. “Hey, no! You might hurt yourself. You still seem a little out of it,” the taller girl warned her. “I should get you some water first, at least.”

“Oh, come on. I’ll be fine, Shimizu.” It sounded strange hearing Sugita call Shimizu by a respectable title rather than by one of her usual nicknames. “Quit babying me. I’ve been through worse than this.”

“I have to agree with Shimizu on this one. I think you’ll only make Kajiwara’s mood worse if you bother her,” I added.

“Did I _ask_ you, bumbler? Stay out of this. I’m going whether you guys like it or not.” Breaking out of Shimizu’s grasp, Sugita stomped out of her room and headed towards Kajiwara’s. As much as I wanted to run after her and see what would happen, I decided that it was probably none of my business and hung back.

“How much do you want to bet that Sugita will get her lights knocked out again?” Nonaka asked Shimizu and me after a brief pause, smirking a bit.

“Don’t joke about that, Nonakin! She’s a fragile girl! She’ll get herself hurt if someone like me isn’t looking out for her!” Shimizu puffed out her cheeks in a strange attempt to look bigger and more intimidating.

“Well, you’re not _wrong_ …as much as she likes to boast about how strong and tough she is, she’s really not the type who could win in a fight. But I guess I don’t know what her background looks like, so it’s not my job to make that judgment.” Nonaka shrugged.

“But you just _did_ make that judgment!” Shimizu argued.

This made Nonaka clam up. “…Oh. I guess I did. Oops.”

“You dummy! I’ll have to give you a proper lesson on manners and _choosing your words carefully_! I’d expect you to know those things because of your web show thing, but _apparently_ people on the internet are allowed to say whatever mean things they want without consequence, if you’re any indication!” Even Nonaka appeared curtailed by Shimizu’s outburst. _“I guess behind all of that excitability and her eccentrics, Shimizu has sort of a motherly side. Not to mention how well she dealt with the Sugita situation…Maybe she’s had to deal with a lot of children before.”_

Quickly deciding that I didn’t want to get yelled at as well, I scurried out of the room as soon as I could. I noticed that Mitsukuri had left her post down the hall, but Kajiwara’s door was still closed and, presumably, locked. I realized that that only left two people unaccounted for; Shinozuka and Tajima, wherever they ran off to in such a hurry. I felt like I could trust Tajima to make sure Shinozuka stayed out of trouble (though I wondered what kind of trouble such a relatively inoffensive boy could get into if nobody ever seemed to notice him) but I still had to be concerned about their prolonged absence.

After finding no trace of them in the dorm hall—their dorms were both locked like most of the other uninhabited ones were—I decided to ask Fujita since she was overlooking the foyer. “Those two? Hm, I _do_ wonder what kind of mischief they could be making…Mischief…very _poem_ worthy mischief, most likely. I’ll have to keep an eye out for them so I can write an aubade.”

I frowned and flushed intensely. “…I made a mistake by asking you. I’m going to ask Ebina if she saw anything in the dining room.”

“Don’t allow your dreams to die here, Teshima,” Fujita called to me as I left. “Don’t you know what happens to a dream deferred? Don’t let this scare you away from partaking in some ‘mischief’ yourself!”

When I got to the dining room, I saw that Erizawa had returned to helping Ootomo and Uehara with the table setting, but with the decorations complete, there wasn’t much left to do. When I turned to Ebina by the wine cellar, though, she looked like she’d just seen a ghost. “Ebina, what’s the matter?”

She leapt to attention and hurt herself trying to straighten up in time. “It’s nothing, Teshima! I only _just_ remembered that I left my oven on at home…!”

“You left your oven on? Were you baking something?”

“Y-Yes! I adore cooking pastries, with an emphasis on, um, German chocolate cakes.” Ebina seemed embarrassed somehow.

I didn’t understand her concern, but I went along with it anyway. “Uh, okay…well, have you seen Shinozuka and Tajima around here? I haven’t seen either of them for a while….”

“I’m sorry, Teshima! You’re the only interloper I’ve seen enter the dining room while dinner has been under way!”

“Well, that’s a definitive answer if I’ve ever heard one…thanks anyway, Ebina.”

“It’s a pleasure to serve you!” Ebina bowed so quickly that I thought I heard her crack her back. “Have a nice evening!”

Not wanting to bother Ebina any longer, I started to make my way out of the dining room before I felt a light hand touch my shoulder. I thought from the softness of it that it could have been Ootomo standing on her tip-toes at first, but I was pleasantly surprised when I turned to see Futabatei smiling down at me. “Perfect timing, Yuu,” she greeted me, clapping her hands together. I noticed from the dull noise that she was still wearing the white cotton gloves she liked to wear when making her coffee. “I just finished my evening blend. Would you like to help me carry everything out of the kitchen to the auditorium?”

“We’re having coffee in the auditorium? I assumed we’d be drinking it in the dining room,” I answered.

“That’s what I proposed, but Igarashi told me that we shouldn’t bother Ootomo and Uehara while they’re setting everything up.” Futabatei pouted a bit. “Honestly…I appreciate his concern, but he’s being a little overbearing, don’t you think? They’re finished with the dining room. Now they’re just milling around until they can start cooking.”

I looked to where Erizawa, Ootomo, and Uehara had been earlier and noticed that Erizawa was missing by that point, leaving Ootomo and Uehara in what looked to be a rather awkward conversation that made Uehara’s face cherry red. “Yeah, he’s being more than a little bit ridiculous. Is he still in the kitchen? You probably noticed, but he won’t let me in. Even if I volunteer to help you carry everything out, he’ll kick me out right away.”

This made Futabatei bite her lip. “Wait…now that you mention it, I don’t remember seeing Igarashi in there earlier. I’ve been in there working since the meeting ended, and after a while, I noticed that he’d disappeared. I have no idea where he could have gone to….”

A shiver traveled down my spine, but I couldn’t help but be relieved to hear that Igarashi was gone from the kitchen. Even still, it was worrisome to think of what he may be doing—especially when Shinozuka and Tajima were noticeably absent from all corners of the rehab center. _“No, I can’t start thinking like that. It’s probably nothing. I can’t start jumping to conclusions.”_ I reminded myself. “Alright, well, at least that makes our coffee mission easier. I’ll run ahead and grab the pot so you won’t spill it on yourself by accident. You can carry the dishes and stuff.”

“You don’t think I can carry hot coffee by myself?” Futabatei asked jokingly. “Oh ye of little faith—I’m the SHSL Barista, Yuu. I can handle hot coffee.”

“But your skin is really soft, so if you—” When she started to giggle, I stopped myself short. “Um, okay. Never mind. You can go ahead and carry the coffee. You probably won’t burn yourself.”

“Hm…no, I’ll let you carry it. You offered it in a very gentlemanly way, after all. I have to respect your request.” Futabatei gave me a small, courteous bow before leading me to the kitchen.

I noticed that Erizawa was looking after something being cooked in a pot on the stovetop when we entered the kitchen—and, just as Futabatei said, Igarashi was nowhere in sight. Even still, I could swear that something was missing. I saw the coffee in a pot beside the stovetop and the cups nearby it and moved to pick it up as Erizawa greeted me. “Oh, Mr. Igarashi said you weren’t allowed in the kitchen earlier…but he’s been micromanaging this dinner from the beginning, so it must feel nice to subvert his authority like this. D-Don’t tell him I said that, but I wish _I_ could break the rules like that without worrying about being kicked to the curb.”

“Don’t be silly, Erizawa! We could never kick you to the curb. Not when you work so hard to make such delicious food for us,” Futabatei encouraged him.

“I see…I’m only appreciated for the fruits of my hard work.” Erizawa focused more intently on whatever he was cooking. “That means I’ll have to work twice as hard! I’ll earn my keep no matter what…!”

“Keep up the hard work. I believe in you,” Futabatei said. “Just make sure that it doesn’t burn.”

Erizawa yelped and hurried to make sure that his food wasn’t burning as Futabatei gathered up the coffee cups and led me out of the kitchen. “He’s such a fun boy once you get to know him,” she commented as we left. “He certainly has something to hide, but he has a very good heart. We’ll have to promise that we won’t hold his secret against him if it ever comes up. He’ll feel a lot more at ease around us if we do that for him.”

I thought over Futabatei’s words as we went through the dining hall. _“How does she know that much about Erizawa, though? They must’ve talked while they made dinner together…that, or her analytical skills are scarier than I thought. I’ll have to keep her away from Igarashi in case she manages to wrestle my secret out of him…whatever it may be.”_

Once we got to the auditorium, Fujita and Mitsukuri were already following us in hopes of drinking more of Futabatei’s coffee. “I really need a boost! The Kajiwara situation made me super stressed out. I turn my back for a second and _poof_! She's gone,” Mitsukuri remarked. “So I hope you made enough to fill an entire human body!”

“Be careful not to spill it on yourself, dear,” Fujita advised as Mitsukuri started filling a cup with a shaking hand. “Second degree burns would be a bad way to begin this night…Speaking of which, Futabatei, I’ll pass on the coffee for now. My chest is beginning to flutter in an unpleasant way. Anything hot would likely upset me.”

“Oh! Should you get that looked at? I don’t know much about physiology, but if I can find Igarashi, he’ll probably be able to help.” Futabatei frowned at Fujita as she poured a cup of coffee for me.

“It’s nothing. Don’t get that vile creature involved.” I was surprised by the sudden turn in Fujita’s opinion on Igarashi, but I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. _“There might be a grass-roots revolt in the making here…”_ I thought. _“He’ll have to look out or else he may not be ‘in charge’ of this class for much longer.”_

Just then, the door opened to admit three new party members; Nonaka, Tajima, and Shinozuka. I restrained a sigh of relief when Shinozuka raised his hand in greeting to me. “I could smell it from the hall,” Tajima moaned, his mouth watering. “I’ve _gotta_ get, like, a metric ton’a that stuff….”

“Not before _I_ get a metric ton of it!” Mitsukuri started pouring her second cup as Tajima ducked around bodies to get a mug.

“Children, that’s enough. You’ll burn yourselves if you play around with the pot too much. Honestly…” Nonaka shook his head at Mitsukuri and Tajima as they struggled on the ground. “How black is the coffee, Futabatei? I only take it if it’s really bitter.”

“You may not be in luck then, my dear. _You’re_ the only bitter one here,” Fujita mused. “And you definitely can’t take it from yourself…well, not directly, anyhow.”

“Fujita, please. We’re trying to have a drink. Stop being gross.” Shinozuka tried to take a sip of his coffee before he recoiled from the cup and frowned. “Nonaka, you might be in luck. This is really bitter….”

“But I put two creamers and three scoops of sugar in yours,” Futabatei objected. “Anything more and I’d be asking if you wanted coffee with your cream.”

“Don’t talk about ‘cream’ with Fujita in the room,” Nonaka advised us, taking the mug from Shinozuka’s hands when it was offered to him. “It’s something to keep in mind going forward. She won’t make mention of it now because I’ve pointed it out and the last thing she wants to do is beat a dead horse, but she won’t go as easy on you next time.”

“Of course, I forgot that part. Thanks, Nonaka. Do you want to sit? We have plenty of room.” Futabatei gestured to the informal circle we’d made around the coffee mugs and pot.

Nonaka shook his head. “Thanks, I’m fine. I like to drink my coffee standing up. I feel like it _disperses_ better when I have it like this.”

“That’s weird,” Mitsukuri remarked. “You’re a weirdo, Nonaka.”

Before Tajima could say whatever he was attempting to say, he coughed, cried out, and dropped his cup. “Oh God! I think’a just burned out my throat! Shit, how’m I gonna be a movie star if I can’t even talk ‘nymore!? Nobu, help!!!”

“I told you to be careful! Don’t ask for my help now!” Even still, Nonaka hurried to the door—probably in an attempt to run and get water or something. “And for goodness’ sake, _stop calling me that_!”

Tajima sat in a tragic silence as Nonaka left and slammed the door after him. “You’ll be fine,” Shinozuka said. “...Or, well, probably. It was just hot coffee and all you did was swallow it wrong. The worst you’ll have is a sore throat.”

“And it’s not as if it’s still boiling hot,” Futabatei assured him. “It’s cooled down since then. You should be fine.”

“What _I’m_ more worried about is the mess you’ve made on the floor,” Fujita said, scooting away from the stain on the carpet. “If this stains my dress, you’re paying for it. And I can _promise_ you that it’ll cost more than fifty yen.”

Tajima sobbed in an almost comical way as Nonaka reentered the room with a pitcher full of ice water. I noticed after a moment that Erizawa was loitering concernedly just behind his back. “Mr. Nonaka, that was supposed to be used for dinner,” he reminded him. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter…This seems to be an emergency. Mr. Tajima, what’ve you done now…?”

“That’s the proper reaction to any Tajima-related situation. You’re catching on very quickly, Erizawa.” Nonaka came up to Tajima at a somewhat leisurely pace and offered him the pitcher to drink from. “Just try not to get your mouth germs all over it. Erizawa still intends to use that for dinner.”

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot that we were having dinner,” I admitted. “Is it almost finished, Erizawa?”

“Oh! Yes.” Erizawa smiled when he saw how excited we’d all gotten at the prospect of eating his food. “I’ve finished the main course already. We only need to wait for Mr. Uehara and Miss Ootomo to finish their parts before we can begin eating.”

“That’s great. We can probably stand to clean up in here and head to the dining room, then,” I suggested. Thinking of the kitchen crew reignited my worries from before. The coffee worked to dull them temporarily, but Erizawa’s comments made them surge back. “But that reminds me…have you seen Igarashi anywhere around here? Futabatei said that she hasn’t seen him for a while. You’ve probably been in the kitchen for longer than anyone else, so I assume you’d know if he was there.”

Erizawa’s expression became strained, but before he could say anything, we heard a strange tone come from the monitor above the door as it turned on. The instant the darkness of the screen dispersed, we saw Monokuma sitting behind his usual doctor’s desk, an ominous smile ever-present on his face. _“It’s not nighttime already, is it? We were supposed to have dinner around seven, so it can’t be ten yet…”_ I thought. _“And what was up with that strange tone…?”_

Before I could ponder this any longer, the bear began to speak. I was disturbed by how cheerful he sounded. “Attention, all patients! A body has been discovered! A class trial will begin soon, so try to collect all of the evidence you can in the time allotted!”

The instant the monitor turned off, Tajima screamed so shrilly that I thought it belonged to Mitsukuri instead. Evidently, his vocal chords weren’t ruined after all. “T-There’s a body? Someone’s dead?!” he cried.

“This is some kind of joke,” Mitsukuri tried to assure herself. “He’s mistaken or something.”

“He’s playing a trick on us,” Futabatei suggested.

“Somehow, I doubt that. Come on, we should go investigate.” I moved to leave the room as most everyone followed after me.

As we made our way out,  I was surprised when Shinozuka was suddenly at my arm. “Igarashi, Kajiwara, and Sugita are unaccounted for. Hano, Ebina, Ootomo, and Uehara should still be in or around the kitchen,” he reasoned. “We’re all here, so none of us are dead…obviously, I guess. But looking at that spread, it’s safe to say that the body was found somewhere near the kitchen. We should look there first.”

I couldn’t have reasoned that any better myself. “Y-You think so? Okay, we can look there first, I guess…thanks, Shinozuka.”

I was surprised again when Futabatei was suddenly at my other arm. “Yuu, I have a bad feeling about this,” she confided in me. “I really haven’t seen Igarashi for a long time now. Do you think something could have happened to him? I know that everyone here isn’t on the best terms with him, but I don’t know if anyone could have really….”

“We’ll just have to find out. Come on! Hurry!” I nearly ran into the dining room to see Ebina shivering by the wine cellar door. “Ebina, is this stuff about a corpse true? What’s going on?”

“T-the cellar…” Ebina whimpered. “It’s in…the kitchen cellar…”

Suddenly, it seemed like Kajiwara had come to join us. “No, this is impossible,” she muttered. “I thought I planned for everything…Everyone, we need to get to the bottom of this right away!”

As a group, we all stormed into the kitchen to find Ootomo and Uehara crowded around the cellar door, looking over something with varying expressions of terror. “What happened?” I demanded, trying to push my way past them. When I was finally at the front of the pack crowded around the open cellar door, I was met face-to-face with the terror I was hoping to outrun ever since Monokuma first announced this game. The inevitable outcome that Futabatei and I were hoping we could just ignore…

 

There was a body lying on its back on the cellar floor, blood pouring from a wound on its head. Its curly hair was matted with drying blood. A bloody, slightly-cracked flower vase lay nearby, coated by dirty fingerprints. It held a single red rose in its gloved hand and looked up at the ceiling with clouded, unseeing eyes. I could have believed for a moment that he was only resting in the cellar after having decorated the dining room…but the potent scent of blood and death in the air told me that that was only wishful thinking. Clearly, Haruki Hano had been murdered.

And the murder was perpetrated…by one of us.


	9. Chapter 1 - Investigation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After discovering the body of one of his beloved classmates, Yuuta Teshima must investigate their murder along with his remaining classmates in order to discover the culprit and survive the upcoming class trial.

“W-What is this?!” Shinozuka cried. “Who could have done a thing like this…?!”

“Whoever did this,” Uehara said, looking extremely torn up, “I’ll never forgive you…!”

“B-but…who _did_ do this?” Erizawa asked, trembling terribly and appearing like he was about to fall over. “I was working in the kitchen nonstop! How is this possible?!”

“Haruki…I didn’t even see him leave. How did he end up here…?” Ootomo said, her voice wavering only slightly; of all of us, Ootomo somehow appeared less frightened.

“Damn,” Nonaka muttered. “I guess this is how that bear’s ‘game’ begins.”

“That’s right.” Everyone turned around in a surprised unison when Igarashi spoke behind us, his tone unusually dark. “Someone among us has killed Haruki Hano. And now that three of us have found the body, we’re meant to investigate in preparation for Monokuma’s ‘class trial’.”

“But there’s hardly anything to find, bastard,” Sugita growled, looking over the scene with a fear that was only thinly veiled by anger. “How’re we supposed to get a ‘culprit’ out of this?”

“We’ll have to find a way. Otherwise, the rest of us are in danger.” Igarashi pushed by me to look at the body. “So, as the leader of this class, I choose to officially commence this investigation…for Hano’s sake.”

_“I still don’t know who’s made you the ‘leader of the class’, but you have a point, I guess…if we want to get to the bottom of the mystery of Monokuma’s identity and get out of here alive, we’ll need to find Hano’s culprit and reveal them in the class trial. I’m not sure what’ll happen if we fail in that attempt, but it can’t be anything good. So we really need to try our best now. No holds barred—we need to find justice for Hano!”_

**INVESTIGATION—BEGIN**

 

Most of the members of my class started dispersing from the crime scene so that they could investigate elsewhere, but before I could make a decision, Igarashi stopped me. “Though the thought of helping you disgusts me, _Yuuta Teshima_ , I’m going to oversee your investigation.”

“W-What? Why? You don’t trust me?” I asked.

His glare was pure toxin. “Of course I don’t. You’ll probably try to destroy evidence and squeeze false testimonies out of people if you’re left alone. Not to mention the circles you could lead Futabatei and Shinozuka in….”

“Why would I do things like that? And what do Futabatei and Shinozuka have to do with any of this? I want to get to the bottom of this just as much as anyone else. Hano was _my_ friend, too. I don’t want the culprit to get away with this crime.”

Igarashi gave a dry, sardonic chuckle. “I sincerely doubt that. You’ve been a troublemaker from the very beginning. Now then, we shouldn’t lollygag. Let’s begin collecting evidence.”

When Igarashi didn’t say anything else, I assumed he was waiting for me to take charge of the investigation. I gave the crime scene a cursory glance. Hano’s body didn’t look like it had been moved, I guessed, and the effects on the shelves weren’t disturbed in any way that would suggest a huge fight. But with the aesthetics out of the way, that only left… “…We have to investigate the body, right?”

Igarashi snorted, his expression wrinkled with unkempt disgust. “I knew that you’d want to start with the body, you villain. You must be proud of your work…You disgust me.”

_“What is he talking about?”_ I questioned. _“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter much…I should probably investigate regardless. After all, Monokuma’s probably not planning to give us all of the time in the world before the class trial.”_

Before I could get too close to the body, though, we heard a loud boing that made Futabatei and Erizawa flinch nearby. Monokuma appeared between me in the body, looking more triumphant than I would have liked. “Hold it!” he exclaimed. “What kind of investigation would this be without the standard **Monokuma File**?”

“Monokuma File?” I asked.

“Oh, yes! The Monokuma File will tell you everything that needs to be known about the body, including a thorough autopsy and, if you’re lucky, an estimated time of death,” Monokuma said. “Since none of you bastards are skilled enough to perform autopsies on your own, consider this a little gift from me to you to make sure that the class trial is extra exciting. But don’t expect anything more than that, got it?!”

“So wait, you’re just giving this to us for free?” Erizawa questioned. “To ‘make the trial more interesting’…?”

“Of course! Nothing’s more annoying than watching a bunch of stupid bastards yell back and forth about shit they have no idea about. Since none of you are the SHSL Physician or the SHSL Coroner, it’s up to me to tell you what’s up with the body so you don’t get off topic trying to figure it out.” Monokuma sighed. “Honestly, why did Hope’s Peak bother recruiting such ‘meh’ talents this year? There were so many useful characters in the last classes, but now what’ve you got? The SHSL Street Performer? Pass—what’s she gonna do, juggle at the body until it tells her what happened? SHSL Movie Critic—yeah, some help _he’ll_ be…and of course, you know that the other ones are of a similar, dubious quality. So as you can _plainly_ see, you all would be lost without me! You can mail your letters of undying affection towards me to my PO Box…with shipping and handling enclosed. Upupupupupu!” With that, Monokuma disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared. His cheerful laughter stayed in the room for a few moments after he’d disappeared.  

“I’m reading that file,” Igarashi snapped, ripping the file from my hand and scanning it over as I fumed. “The victim is **Haruki Hano** , of course…Time of death was **around 6:05** , about **forty minutes ago** , and the cause of death was **blunt force trauma to the head by a glass object** …that flower vase being the ‘glass object’ in question, I presume. **He doesn’t have any injuries that would suggest a substantial struggle** ; after the blow to the head, he **died instantly**.”

“Well, I guess at least he wasn’t scared in his last moments,” I murmured thoughtfully. “That’s the way he would have wanted it, I think. He was always a skittish sort of guy….”

The scorn in Igarashi’s glare was sickening. “I can’t believe you. You horrible, horrible thing.”

“What did I do!?” I questioned.

“You killed Hano.” The determination in Igarashi’s expression almost made me believe him. “It’s completely obvious from the way you’re trying to sugarcoat everything. You want to make it seem as if your crime wasn’t as severe as it is.”

I gaped at him. “What?! I have an alibi that half of our class can confirm!”

“Do you remember specifically where you were at 6:05 when Hano died?”

I tried to rack my memory to search for the answer to that question. “Well, no...but that doesn’t mean anything! Do _you_ remember where you were at 6:05?”

“I was in the kitchen. **I never left the kitchen all night** ,” Igarashi claimed.

“That’s a lie,” Futabatei interjected; I was so absorbed in my fight with Igarashi that I forgot she was still there. “ **You disappeared from the kitchen while we were cooking**. And if I’m not mistaken, the **time around which you disappeared _was_ 6:05**. Wasn’t it, Erizawa?”

“That sounds about right….” Erizawa entered the conversation from the section of the kitchen cellar he was investigating. “I wasn’t really paying attention to the time while I was cooking, but I do remember that I was in the kitchen **alone** at some point, so Mr. Igarashi must have left. **I didn’t see him again until we found the body**. Where did you go, Mr. Igarashi?”

When Igarashi started looking chalky and refused to answer Erizawa’s question, I decided that this was a moot point only worth exploring once we had more evidence. “Well, anyway,” I decided, “what did you find in the back of the cellar, Erizawa? That’s where you were looking, right?”

Erizawa nodded. “It feels wrong back there, but I can’t figure out what’s up. Something’s **different** , I think….”

_“Shit, that reminds me…I never_ did _investigate this cellar when I did my initial search of the building, did I? So if something was different back there, I’d have no idea what it was. I guess I’ll have to rely on someone else to figure that part out, as much as I’d like to figure it out myself…But Erizawa’s in here the most out of all of us—if even_ he _doesn’t know what’s different, then who could figure it out?”_ “Well, I’ll take note of that, I guess. It could help us later. Was there anything else?”

“Not that I could find. There’s nothing lying on the ground in plain sight back there, at least. Nothing’s bloody, nothing’s knocked over…which just reminds me even more; **how did Mr. Hano get here**? I’m actually pretty peeved about that detail! **I was in and out of the kitchen all night**. If he snuck in here and the culprit killed him, then how did they sneak into the cellar under my nose? They both would’ve had to go through the kitchen first, but **I didn’t see anyone who didn’t belong in the kitchen enter at any point in the night** …well, besides you, Mr. Teshima.”

“Excuse me?” Igarashi turned on me, looking like he wanted to kill me. “How did you get into the kitchen? I expressly ordered that you not be allowed inside!”

“Futabatei needed my help carrying the coffee out, so I came in to help her,” I answered with only a little irritation. “She and Erizawa both said that I wasn’t allowed in there, but neither of them really cared. And when I _did_ enter, I didn’t go anywhere near the cellar.”

“After Ms. Futabatei left with Mr. Teshima, **I was alone**. I don’t remember what time that was, though.” Erizawa sighed as if he was releasing a great weight from his chest. “Even still, I need to know how Mr. Hano and the culprit snuck into the kitchen under my nose! I’m extremely upset about this. If I had caught them before they got to the cellar, then none of this would have happened….”

“It wasn’t your fault, Erizawa. Don’t blame yourself for the culprit’s actions. _Teshima_ is the one who should have to bear that weight.” All I could do was gape angrily at Igarashi as he continued speaking. “Anyway, we should definitely take note of the murder weapon here, the angle of the body, and that…rose. That’s a little strange, isn’t it?”

I could see that the sight of the **thorny rose** in Hano’s hand made Futabatei uncomfortable due to her secret—I’d recognized the same behavior from her in the sun room a few times—but it only made me confused. “What would the culprit gain by planting that there? I have to assume that the rose was in that vase before, but where did it come from?”

“Wasn’t that rose in the kitchen earlier?” Futabatei asked, frowning. “But I thought **I moved it out to the sunroom** when I started making my coffee.” I was tempted for a moment to ask why, but when I remembered her secret again, I decided that it made sense.

“So that means that the culprit **has to be someone who knew you put the rose in the sunroom** , right?” I asked. “Otherwise, how would they know that they could find the murder weapon out there?”

“That’s not necessarily true. **Hano was preparing the tables in the dining room, and part of that job involved setting flowers on the tables** —which makes sense, considering his talent.” Igarashi seemed somehow nonplussed by the sight of the rose. “ **Anyone could have taken one of his flower vases from the dining room and entered the kitchen cellar with it**. Case in point, _you_ , Teshima.”

“That could have been anyone! Why is it suddenly _my_ fault?”

“You’ll find out why very soon, but I think you already know what you’ve done. You’re the only person who could’ve trespassed in that cellar…well, minus Hano, that is.” Igarashi turned away from me to direct his attention back to the body. “It appears as if he was **struck from the front,** most likely by a **left-handed culprit**. So, he was in the cellar itself— **near the back** —when he was killed.”

“That makes even _less_ sense!” Erizawa complained. “Why would he go into the cellar by himself and wait to get killed?!”

_“There’s a lot more to this mystery then we first thought,”_ I decided. _“This might be something we have to look at in court. For now, we don’t have enough information from the scene itself to come to any conclusions.”_

When Igarashi was about to follow me out of the kitchen cellar to investigate elsewhere, Erizawa stopped him. “Um, Mr. Igarashi, could you stay with me for a little while? I have some concerns I would like to share with you concerning the nature of the murder and your alibi.”

“You need my help?” Igarashi asked. “I’m sorry, but I need to make sure Teshima doesn’t interfere with any evidence. I can’t stay with you.”

“But this is important. We may not find the culprit if we don’t clear this information up. The mystery of Mr. Hano’s appearance in the cellar is bothering me too much to just ‘let go’ or sit on. You have to help me figure this out.” Erizawa looked unusually stubborn in the face of Igarashi’s rejection.

Finally, Igarashi seemed to relent. In a much softer tone, he said, “Okay, I can help you. It won’t be an issue. But Teshima—” he turned suddenly to glare at me, “—if I find _any_ signs that evidence has been tampered with, I’ll know without a doubt that you’re responsible. Don’t think for a second that my absence means you’re safe to roam around and do whatever you’d like.” With that threat dually delivered, Erizawa pulled Igarashi aside and started to mutter things to him with furrowed brows. Deciding that this wasn’t any of my business, I went back into the kitchen so I could try to regroup and figure out where to go next.

Before I could come to any conclusions, I noticed that Futabatei had followed me out and was trying to get my attention. “Great, now that Igarashi is distracted, I can propose this idea to you. Yuu, we need to partner up together. I think that you’ll be a major help to us in this investigation, so I need to help you.”

“Help me? Help me with what?” _“And who said that I’ll be the best at this? If anyone, you should really be following Shinozuka or Kajiwara around. Or maybe this has to do with one of your dreams….”_

Futabatei gave me a knowing smile. “Do you remember when I told everyone about the psychological profiles I wrote up? I told Kajiwara that I would only pull them out if something serious happened because of client confidentiality. And _I’d_ call this a dire enough situation to justify releasing some profiles.”

My mood brightened exponentially. “T-That’s great! We can look through all of the profiles you’ve made and see who would be the most likely to jump to violence or commit this type of murder or—”

“—But I don’t want to release any unnecessary secrets,” Futabatei interrupted. “Hano is…no longer with us, so I’ll readily show his records to you. As for the others, I’ll only give you their information if you can prove that they had the potential to commit the crime by showing me real, tangible evidence. Okay? And my profiles may be spotty in some places, so don’t be surprised if they’re not much help. Unfortunately, I haven’t had enough time to connect with _everyone_ here yet.”

“That…makes sense, I guess. You wouldn’t want to release everything and infringe on anyone’s privacy for no reason.” Though I was slightly disappointed by her correction of my idea, I was energized nonetheless by the information she could have had. Even if she was only willing to tell me more about Hano to begin with, I was sure that I’d find evidence that could implicate someone else. “Well, tell me all you found out about Hano before he died.”

Futabatei paused for a moment. “Hano was a very… **secretive** boy,” she began. “He tried to give the impression that he was **totally open** and was **laying his thoughts and personality on the table** for everyone to see, but what we saw was **never the whole picture**. I don’t know what that ‘real picture’ was, but it seemed like **he had a lot to hide** if he made up an entire personality for himself in order to conceal it. Not only that, but he made a point to **give that personality spikes so that he wouldn’t be bothered**. That aspect could be a result of his victimization in junior high, but….”

When Futabatei stopped just short of what could’ve been a dramatic revelation, I felt shafted somehow. “But what? Did he have even _more_ to hide…?”

“…There were times when **I doubted that excuse** ,” Futabatei admitted in a low voice. “I don’t know why. I guess there was always something off about his voice. He was a **fairly convincing liar** , all things considered, but he tripped up just enough that I think I caught onto something. He had to have gone to high school if he was accepted to Hope’s Peak, at least, but **I’m not sure about junior high**. Since he’s dead, though, it seems as if we’ll never know the truth.” When Futabatei looked back at the kitchen cellar behind us, I saw the same grief in her eyes that I saw in Erizawa’s when he questioned how the culprit could have snuck past him. “…But that’s all there is to say about Hano. Or, that’s all I was able to find out on my own, at least. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to learn more about him or try to help before this happened to him….”

“Don’t blame yourself for anything. You couldn’t have known that something was about to happen to him. It’s nothing to get yourself worked up about.” I felt better when Futabatei smiled. “Anyway, let’s see…Igarashi’s been acting suspicious, don’t you think? Can I know what you think about him?”

“Well, that depends. What specific evidence is working against him right now?”

“You can tell that he’s acting shifty, right? He’s being really weird.”

“Maybe so, but there isn’t any material evidence to suggest that he might have had a hand in the crime. I can’t release everyone’s records all willy-nilly. I need to have some respect for my clients, even if one of them is the culprit behind this crime.”

“I guess…forget I asked, then.” _“I guess there’s no way around it…I need to investigate further if I want to get information about any of our classmates. I was hoping Futabatei would make it easier than that….”_

After leaving the cellar, Futabatei and I saw Uehara milling around near the range stove with despair written on his expression. “Is it true what I’ve been told? The murder weapon originated in the kitchen?” he asked us. “Inconceivable…I can’t accept the thought that anyone in the kitchen staff could have committed this murder.”

“Well, **it doesn’t seem like you or Ootomo could have done it** , at least,” I assured him. “We don’t know about Igarashi and Erizawa, though. And I think Futabatei can speak for herself.”

“There shouldn’t be anything to worry about,” Futabatei ensured him. “ **The only person who was ever left alone in the kitchen was Erizawa** , but that was only after the murder occurred, wasn’t it? So we should all have **valid alibis** if we testify for one another. For example, **Igarashi was in the kitchen with me until around the time of the murder** , so his alibi is established up until then. Erizawa came into the kitchen **shortly after Igarashi vanished** , so my alibi for the entire night should be solid unless one of the two of them chooses to lie.”

“But we still had **the means** and **the murder weapon** …how will we be defended against our classmates’ accusations?” Uehara’s frown made him look like a sick puppy. “It seems as if **no one outside of the kitchen could have committed the murder** , if the placement of Hano’s body is any indication….”

“Not to mention the question of **how** **he ended up in there in the first place** when everyone in the kitchen is testifying that they never saw him enter,” I added. “All in all, it seems like a big mess.”

“We’ll get it sorted out, I’m sure,” Futabatei said. “We just need to remember all of the information that we’ve learned so far and keep in mind when we start making theories later.”

“I don’t know…there’s an awful lot of information to keep track of. I don’t know if I’ll remember everything,” I admitted.

Uehara dug around in his pocket until he retrieved his ElectroID. “Well, I’ve been cataloging all the information I’ve received in the Truth Bullets section of my ElectroID,” he explained. “It was grayed out earlier, but it’s been an accessible tab ever since…well, you know.”

“Huh?” I pulled out my ElectroID and noticed that, indeed, the icon for Truth Bullets on the menu was no longer gray. When I clicked on it, I saw ample space for me to write notes for pieces of evidence. “Wow, this is amazing. I just have to wonder what it was used for when we were actual Hope’s Peak students and not a bunch of…murder detectives.”

“That’s the least of our problems right now, Yuu,” Futabatei reminded me. “You should go ahead and add everything you’ve found out so far. That would mean adding the Monokuma File, the details about the angle and placement of the body, the rose, the murder weapon, my profile for Hano, and the kitchen staff’s alibis.”

“Right…” I typed everything in as quickly as I could.

Uehara nodded respectfully when I appeared to be finished. “I’m glad I could be useful,” he said. “I have a very weak stomach when it comes to things like this, so you’ll have to forgive me for keeping my distance. I’m not sure I’d be able to contain myself if I got any closer than this.”

“That’s fine, Uehara. We’ll come back if we have any questions for you,” Futabatei said. “Thank you for your help.”

Leaving our interaction at that, we decided to leave the kitchen together and head out to the dining room, where we found that Ebina was still standing guard by an albeit-cracked open wine cellar door. “How are you doing, Ebina?” I asked casually.

She seemed petrified about talking to me for a moment, but she quickly got over herself so she could answer me. “I-I’m doing fine, Teshima, Futabatei. I’ve been ordered by Igarashi to keep my post here so I can oversee any suspicious activities that may be undertaken in the dining room area during the investigation.”

_“So he’s enlisted her as part of his militia to keep me from ‘getting up to’ anything…great. It seems like Ebina’s loyalties change with the tides sometimes. First she was dedicated to helping Kajiwara, and now she’s dedicated to helping Igarashi. Before we know it, she’ll be following Ootomo around helping her manipulate boys or something. What a horrible day that’ll be….”_ “Have you seen anything suspicious tonight, Ebina?” Futabatei asked. “Er, you _have_ been here all night, right?”

“ **I haven’t moved an inch all night!** ” She announced with overbearing confidence. “ **The only outsider I saw attempting to enter the kitchen was _you, Yuuta Teshima_!** ”

_“Gee, doesn’t_ that _sound familiar….”_ “But I didn’t go into the kitchen, so that doesn’t matter,” I said. “Did you see Hano go into the kitchen? Or anyone else, for that matter?”

“No! **I lost track of Hano after he finished decorating the dining room**! I turned away for one moment, and he was gone!” Ebina’s serious expression became strained. “I-It was actually kind of spooky!”

“He didn’t _teleport_ into the cellar, Ebina,” Futabatei joked. “But I guess we’re getting nowhere by asking over and over. Even if you know anything, you clearly don’t want to tell us.”

“Well, if you haven’t moved from this place all night, I guess that means that you haven’t seen the crime scene,” I continued. “Do you have any idea what’s going on? Do you even know who got killed?”

“Yes! **Hano was bludgeoned with a wine bottle** , was he not?”

Futabatei and I exchanged a concerned look. “Hano was killed with a flower vase, not a wine bottle,” Futabatei said carefully. “Maybe you should take a look at the crime scene so you won’t be lost during the trial. I’m keeping an eye on Teshima for now, so you can consider yourself relieved of your duties if you’d like.”

“No! **I was given strict, _strict_ orders from Igarashi** that I cannot neglect!” Ebina cried. “I’m sorry, Futabatei, but I suppose I’ll have to ‘stay out of the loop’ in this investigation. I apologize for my complete and utter uselessness in your cause.”

“You haven’t been useless. At least we have your testimony about who went into the kitchen,” I assured her. “It’ll be a big help, knowing that.”

“Perhaps you’re right….” Ebina considered this with a steadily-paling face. “Well, don’t let me distract you any longer. I’m sure you have much better places to be.”

“That’s right. We can’t rest for a minute.” Futabatei nodded definitively. “Yuu, once you’re done entering that information we just learned into your ElectroID, I think we should try talking to Fujita next. She was the ‘Ebina of the foyer’, wasn’t she? She can tell us if anyone snuck into the kitchen through the sunroom and give us some insight into where Hano went after he finished decorating the dining room.”

“That’s a good idea.” I finished inputting Ebina’s information and looked up at Ebina again. “Thanks again for the information. We’ll have to get somewhere with testimony as straightforward as that.”

“Anytime, Teshima! I’ll see you again during the trial!” Ebina gave me a bow and saluted us as we left the dining room to investigate elsewhere.

The instant we left the dining room, Futabatei pulled me aside to speak with me. “That was a very smart question to ask, Yuu. I’m surprised I didn’t think of that myself,” she said.

My cheeks started to burn red. “Um…which question? What do you mean?”

“You don’t remember? Ebina just told us something very interesting, even if it was inadvertent,” Futabatei explained. “If she hasn’t been to the crime scene yet and there was no one in the dining room to tell her who the victim was, then **how did she know that the victim was Hano**? Not only that, but **how was she able to name a theoretical murder scenario so quickly**?”

“That’s true…but wait, the murder weapon she said wasn’t even correct. We didn’t find a wine bottle at the scene of the crime. He was killed by that flower vase,” I insisted.

Futabatei clucked her tongue. “That’s not necessarily true. Remember what the Monokuma File said? Hano was killed by blunt force trauma to the head **caused by a glass object.** There’s nothing to say definitively that that object was the vase except for the fact that we found it bloodied at the crime scene. Anyone could have entered the sunroom and stolen that vase to plant at the crime scene, not just kitchen staffers.”

“But I thought the only way into the sunroom was through the kitchen…?”

“Not necessarily. Don’t you remember? There’s a screen door in the sunroom that leads outside. If Fujita can confirm that someone went outside around the time of the murder, then we’ll know that someone tampered with the scene. It wasn’t necessarily the murderer, but it could have been someone outside of the kitchen staff who **wanted to hide the culprit’s true identity**. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, but…does that mean that someone here could **know who the culprit is**?” I questioned. “Who could hide a thing like that? Why would they want to do that if they know we’ll be ‘punished’ in the class trial if we don’t come to the right conclusion…?”

“Who can say? I can think of a few people who might be prone to doing a thing like that if they knew who the culprit was, but most of them either have alibis themselves or would protect people in the class who have alibis. Either way, those scenarios couldn’t have taken place.”

“Hm…that’s still something to consider, though. I guess we really _do_ have to talk to Fujita, then…” Thoughts of the horrible, lecherous woman made a chill run down my spine—even more so when I realized that I didn’t know where she was at the time of the murder. _“But where was_ I _at the time of the murder, for that matter? I can’t even remember. And if Fujita didn’t see me so she could tell me, then….”_

I brushed my worries of being framed for this crime aside so Futabatei and I could approach Fujita where she loitered in the foyer. “You’re not helping, Fujita?” I questioned.

“Hm, I probably shouldn’t. I don’t want to break a nail or stain my dress with anything in that dark, dank cellar. I’m sure my testimony should be enough for you two, though.” Fujita smiled warmly at us before she began speaking. “I have an idea of what you both would like to ask me. Truthfully, **I never saw anyone leave out the front door** in the time I’ve been standing here. Granted, **I left my post for a brief period of time** , but I’m sure that **no one left or reentered Hiroishiya** in order to plant evidence or sneak into the cellar tonight. You can string me up and leave me out to die if I’m incorrect.”

“You sound awfully confident in yourself,” Futabatei observed. “Why is that, Fujita? Do you know something that we don’t?”

Fujita’s smile grew as she crossed her arms coyly and turned her head. “Well, **I _do_ have a good idea of who the culprit may be**, so I’m not too worried about the formal investigation.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Really? Who is it?”

“It’s not too surprising a truth, but…oh my, I’m afraid I can’t say.” Fujita chuckled softly and shook her head a bit. “What was it that you said, Futabatei? ‘It’s an issue of client confidentiality’? I’m sure you’ll both figure it out in no time if you put your heads together. They’re not doing a very good job of making themselves look innocent, after all….”

With that ominous comment aside, Futabatei and I decided to investigate elsewhere instead of wasting time pressing Fujita for information we knew she wasn’t going to give us. “Who do you think she was talking about, though?” I wondered aloud to Futabatei once we were at a safe distance. “Has there been anyone here who’s acting stranger than normal?”

“Of course. Everyone here but the culprit has just stumbled upon what could be his or her first dead body,” Futabatei answered. “Everyone is internalizing the truth of the situation a little differently than the next, so it’s hard to say who Fujita thinks is acting any stranger than that. I suppose we would need to think about **who she’s seen since the investigation started** to figure that out—that, or go back and investigate everyone to get information from them like we got from Ebina.”

“Well, we know that Erizawa, Uehara, Ebina, and Fujita herself have been in the east wing of the building since the investigation started. Igarashi’s been jumping around, so we can’t know if Fujita has seen him. And I guess if we didn’t see everyone else in class, then they must either be outside, in the sunroom, or somewhere in the dorms. I assume Fujita would tell us if someone went into the auditorium. So then, everyone unaccounted for in the cellar, kitchen, dining room, and foyer must be in the dorm hall….”

“Wait…aren’t we forgetting a room? There’s another room between the kitchen and the foyer that there might be witnesses in.” Futabatei’s eyes lit up as if she’d just unraveled the entire case. “And if you remember, the wine cellar door was cracked open when we talked to Ebina. What if someone is in there right now? Wouldn’t that be kind of suspicious?”

“Oh, that’s true! But why would they want to go into the wine cellar if the murder took place in the kitchen cellar…?”

“That doesn’t matter right now. We should check before they get suspicious and run away.” Futabatei took my hand in her gloved one and ran with me to the place where Ebina was stationed. “Ebina, is there anyone in the wine cellar right now?”

“Yes! I allowed **Shinozuka** access to the cellar upon his humble request! He had **written permission from Igarashi** , so I couldn’t turn him away!” Ebina looked extremely nervous about something. “Why do you ask?”

_“Shinozuka? Written permission to investigate in the wine cellar, of all places? This smells really fishy,”_ I quietly observed. “Do you know if he’s found anything?”

“Beats me! I’ve been standing here trying not to eavesdrop on anyone’s private conversations since the investigation began! I don’t know anything about what anyone has found so far!” Ebina gave us the most professional shrug I’d ever seen in my life. “You’re welcome to enter and check on him, if you so wish!”

“Of course. Thank you, Ebina.” Futabatei nodded respectfully to Ebina before nudging her aside and taking me inside the cellar. “Come on, Yuu.”

Climbing down the ladder after Futabatei, I was immediately hit with the strong scent of wine upon reaching a certain threshold in the cellar. I tried to remember if it had always been so strong a scent in the cellar, but I could only ever recall smelling the scent of damp dirt in this cellar when I first looked around in it. I wondered if Ebina was lying about Shinozuka’s presence in the cellar for a while before I saw him perk up from the squat he sat in on the other side of the cellar and look at Futabatei and I with a smile. “Oh, hey, you two! Did you get a weird vibe from this place like I did?”

“You could say that.” Futabatei cocked her head a bit so she could see whatever mess was behind Shinozuka. Following suit, I could make out fragments of a scene looking remarkably similar to what it would look like if Uehara ever came tumbling down into the wine cellar. “What’s all that?”

“Oh, that? I’m trying to figure that out myself, actually.” Shinozuka gave a short, pensive look to the mess before looking back at us with a tiny smile. “Do you guys want to help? I’ve been alone in here all night.”

“Oh! Uh…sure?” I walked around Shinozuka to see the other side of the accident he was speaking about. On the ground, I saw a single **smashed bottle of wine** sitting in the center of a **big puddle**. I recoiled from the puddle staining the dirt floor when I realized that it was the source of the dizzying wine smell I was hit with upon entering. “Whoa! Looks like a bottle fell off the shelf,” I remarked. “I wonder what someone was doing down here, though…This place couldn’t have anything to do with the murder, could it?”

“It could. I haven’t figured it out yet.” Shinozuka shrugged. “I’m more concerned with all of the stuff in the back of the cellar, personally.”

“I see what you mean.” I was shocked out of my boots when I saw that Futabatei had travelled to the back of the cellar to look at **some rags** lying on the ground. I moved with Shinozuka as fast as I could in order to join her and see what she had found. Though most were fairly clean, a few were dotted with **specks of wine**. Upon pulling back all of these layers, however, was the source of Futabatei’s stoic concern—a scrap of rag with **a considerable amount of blood** stained on it. I stared at it, my mouth agape, as Futabatei commented, “Well, this means that **the wine cellar definitely has something to do with this murder**. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have found blood here. What do you make of this, Shinozuka?”

“Y-You’re getting impersonal all of a sudden. You usually call me by my first name. I don’t like that.” Shinozuka smiled awkwardly and shuffled his feet. “I don’t know what to make of it that you didn’t just say. I mean, those were my thoughts exactly. I’m just wondering how this is possible… **the culprit couldn’t have gotten in here legitimately**. I guess it’s looking more and more like Hano disappeared and just ended up, murdered, in the kitchen cellar like Ebina said. I don’t know how he got there in the first place, much less how the crime could have happened in here somehow. Although…I guess there is _one_ thing that could explain it.”

When Shinozuka threw his gaze to the very back of the cellar, I followed it to see a big, heavy door that still wouldn’t budge when I turned the handle. The door had always been there, but something about it was starting to bother me in that moment…. “You’re thinking what I am, right, Teshima?” Shinozuka asked before I could figure out what I was thinking. “There used to be a **lock** there.”

“What? But it’s still locked regardless. That means that it has to have a lock on it, right?.” I squinted at the big metal door and found no evidence of a locking mechanism. “Maybe things have changed in here since the first time we investigated. Or maybe we’re just remembering things wrong….”

“That could all be true, but…I don’t know, there’s something _supernatural_ about it, I think.” Shinozuka frowned at the door. “I don’t know where it could have went, but I’m pretty sure it was here the last time I looked.”

_“Well, that makes for_ two _strange doors in once investigation, huh? But both are still locked up tight, so there’s no telling what could really be different or relevant about them. Hopefully we’ll find out before our time at this place is done. I can’t stand secrets like this….”_

As I turned to start making my way out of the cellar, I was shocked when I felt a slight push at my back, followed by a terrified. “O-Oops!” Before I could right myself, I was knocked into one of the shelves of wine, knocking at three bottles down. Whereas one burst open in a wet mess of wine further down the row, the other two landed safely on the ground…though one of the two still leaked out wine. To make matters worse, when I tried to catch my balance, I felt a cold, wet feeling in my sock as I stomped down directly in the big puddle left by the original broken bottle on the floor. I spun around, desperate to see who had made such an infuriating accident happen, and saw that Shinozuka was standing about half a meter behind me with a blank face. “T-Teshima, I-I’m…I really didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t lie to him, Shinozuka!” Futabatei’s sudden snap made me flinch. “I saw that! It looked like you **pushed him**! What are you trying to sabotage?”

“S-Sabotage? What are you—?”

“Knocking those extra bottles on the ground to make a bigger mess gets rid of the mess that was originally here! No one else in class can come in here and see what we saw now! I’m confident that you just pushed Yuu over so you could **hide that evidence**!”

“W-What? N-No! Please, I didn’t—!”

“First we found you snooping around alone in a strange area of the rehab center under _Igarashi’s_ orders. You’ve been behaving strangely ever since you found that stupid ring of yours, so there’s number two. And now you’re pushing Yuu around and destroying evidence—if all of this wasn’t set up by you in the first place. As of now, you’re officially a suspect on my list…and a prominent one, at that.” Futabatei’s narrowed eyes reminded me of a snake preparing to strike. She gave Shinozuka a final withering glare before turning back to me. “Because I’m regarding him as a suspect now, I’m comfortable about giving you his **psychoanalytic profile** —or, at least, what I’ve compiled as of yet. I don’t want to tell you in earshot of him in case he tries to change his disposition in court, but that’s a ‘freebie’. And we’ve found everything in here anyway, so we can leave now.”

“Wait, F-Futabatei, don’t you think you’re being a little rash? I didn’t even get to apologize for getting in Shinozuka’s way—and how can we really prove that he pushed me with intention?” I spun out of Futabatei’s grip as she tried to lead me out of the cellar so I could face Shinozuka, who looked like his soul had been ripped out. “I-I’m sorry about this, Shinozuka. I’ll listen to what she has to say about your profile, but I don’t personally think you’re too much of a suspect. There aren’t many reasons for me to think that you would have killed Hano. After all, your secret was revealed, so it couldn’t have had anything to do with the motive.”

“That’s true,” Shinozuka said considerately. “Well…thank you, Teshima. I hope that I can help you figure out who the culprit is during the trial. I don’t know how much of a help I’ll be, but at least we found this evidence. A-And don’t think I’ll try to hide it, either! I’ll make sure everyone knows that there was evidence in here.”

“Yeah, of course. Thanks, Shinozuka, you’re a big help.” I turned to follow Futabatei out of the cellar, the heat of the exchange I’d just witnessed still hanging in the air. _“I’ve never seen Futabatei get that irritated before in my life,”_ I observed. _“She’s scarier than I thought…it really looked like Shinozuka made an accident from my perspective, but I guess she must have seen something that I didn’t just then. Maybe I should get used to that if we’re going to be investigating together….”_

When we were almost at the entrance of the cellar, I yelped and almost fell off the ladder when I heard a shout from the back. “Oh, w-wait! Don’t go! You need to see this! This bottle that fell off of the shelf—it’s **empty**!”

“W-What?” I let myself slide down the part of the ladder I’d just climbed so I could run to the back of the cellar and join Shinozuka by the site of the accident. Looking at the three bottles on the ground, I could see where he was coming from; as I’d previously discovered, one bottle broke in half upon hitting the ground, another fell on the ground and started leaking, and the third looked almost untouched…not only that, but it was obvious that there wasn’t any wine inside of it. “This was **up there with the other bottles** , I guess…?”

“Seems like it. Incidentally, have you seen anyone _drink_ any of this wine since we got here, Teshima?”

“Not that I know of, no….”

“Hum. Well, we can’t know that the bottle wasn’t like this before the crime happened, but it’s still interesting to note. I’m starting to come up with a **theory** now.” Something about the spark in Shinozuka’s eyes made my heart flutter as I finally started to understand how he got his title of SHSL Occult Club Leader. “I don’t want you to jump to any conclusions before we regroup with everyone else, so I don’t want to tell you right away. But I don’t think that this empty bottle is any coincidence. You should definitely take note of this for your investigation.”

“Right….” _“This is really strange…I have no clue where Shinozuka is coming from. This place clearly has something to do with the murder if there are bloody rags in here, but what could this empty bottle of wine have to do with it? It’s not like it has blood or fingerprints on it…if it wasn’t empty, it would look like any of the other bottles in here. Still, this coincidence is still too big to overlook. We’ll have to figure out what’s going on during the trial…but Shinozuka seems to know what’s going on, so maybe there’ll be no assembly necessary for this mystery.”_

When I turned to get Futabatei’s opinion, I realized that the barista wasn’t standing behind me. “Were you expecting Futabatei? Yeah, she probably didn’t want to deal with any more of my…well, she’d probably call them ‘shenanigans’.” Shinozuka smiled, but there was some misery behind it. “For the record, I really wasn’t trying to push you, Teshima. I know you don’t have any reason to believe me over Futabatei, especially considering my crappy alibi, but I don’t have anything to do with this crime.”

“Your alibi? Oh, that reminds me….” I reflected back on all of the time I used trying to search for Shinozuka and Tajima before dinner and realized, with a bit of a jolt, that this time probably encompassed Hano’s estimated time of death. If I was wandering around on my own at the time of the crime and Ebina and Fujita both saw me running back and forth, didn’t that make me look really suspicious? _“Maybe Igarashi’s beliefs aren’t unfounded after all…but I do wonder how he could have gotten that information from Ebina and Fujita before he even left the kitchen cellar.”_ But if I looked suspicious, the missing duo of Shinozuka and Tajima looked almost more suspicious than that—and we still had no idea where they were. “What were you and Tajima doing while everyone was making dinner?”

“Oh! Um….” Shinozuka averted his eyes from me, his eyebrows drawn as if he had a lot on his mind suddenly. “It was kind of personal. I know it looks suspicious, but I’m not at liberty to tell you anything about it.”

“What’re you talking about, ‘you’re not at liberty to tell me anything’? It couldn’t have been that personal. Tajima never remembers anyone and no one ever remembers you—what business could you have had with each other?”

Shinozuka gave me another sad smile. “You know that that was a really mean thing to say, right?”

“Huh? O-Oh! Sorry, I just…I’m just confused about this, that’s all,” I stuttered. “I really don’t understand the correlation between you two—well, besides the fact that you two are the ones with the biggest exposed secrets right now. But Hano didn’t have anything to do with either of those secrets, so….”

“Teshima, I promise that I had nothing to do with this case—I’m just trying to help. And since Tajima and I were together the entire time while dinner was being made, I can confirm that he couldn’t have had anything to do with it either. I’m sure that whatever ‘profile’ Futabatei’s mocked up for me will probably tell you the same. So, do you believe me?”

“I….” I gave the topic a lot of thought before I answered, but I felt disheartened when I did. “I’m going to consider you a suspect regardless. I know I should trust you, but it’s hard when I don’t know for sure where you or Tajima were. I was looking all over for you two and I never saw any sign of you guys. I don’t even know whose secrets you both had. One of you could’ve had Hano’s secret and killed him because of it.”

“You know, I could probably say the same thing about you or Futabatei,” Shinozuka countered. “The only people who would be safe from that rhetoric are the people who went up on the balcony and announced everyone’s secrets this morning—and even then, Hano could’ve had one of _their_ secrets. There’s no way to tell from the motive—at least with the information we have now—who could be a suspect. As of now, it’s down to everyone without an alibi.”

“Which includes you.”

“It _does_ include me. It includes you and Futabatei, too.”

“Futabatei has an alibi for the time of the murder. She told me that she was working in the kitchen with Erizawa around that time.”

“It would only take a second to kill someone, you know. Hano was killed instantly. If he was already in the cellar when she got there, she could’ve poked her head in, killed him, and went back to making her coffee.”

“But the crime scene and all of—” I gestured wildly to the evidence abounding in the wine cellar, “this—doesn’t suggest that that’s the case! There was clearly some preparation to the crime!”

“Anyone could have set up that scene to make it look like there was another culprit. _I_ could have even done it.”

“How? You had no way of getting into the kitchen.”

Shinozuka’s eyes got a little darker. “I could have a way to get into the kitchen if **someone is being persuaded to lie for me**.”

“…What?”

“Nobody knows whose secret I have, right? I didn’t read it out in front of the crowd, so no one knows except for the person the secret concerns. I could manipulate that person into telling everyone what I want them to say about my alibi. If I had—for example—Erizawa’s secret and I blackmailed him into silence, then he wouldn’t tell anyone that I went into the kitchen. Then, if he tried to tell anyone what I did, I could **tell everyone his secret** while we’re gathered up during the class trial.”

The thought that someone could have such an easy way to blackmail their classmates made my skin itch. “Wait, so whose secret _do_ you have? If you’re not guilty, you can at least tell me that.”

Shinozuka smiled. “You won’t like my answer.”

“Tell me anyway!”

“ **I _do_ have Erizawa’s secret, **actually. If you look suspicious because you don’t have an alibi and you were running in circles around the time when the crime was committed, then I must look even _more_ suspicious because my alibi is **questionable at best** and, if I took advantage of that opportunity, then I **had the means to commit the crime**. Not only that, but if you look at Hano’s body, it’s pretty clear that he was struck by a **left-handed culprit**. And guess who happens to be left-handed?” Shinozuka gave me a somewhat mournful smile as he raised his left hand in response to his own question. “Well, anyway. Since I’m telling you all of this, you should at least tell me whose secret _you_ have. I don’t necessarily suspect you of the crime, I just think that would be a fair exchange. And if it’s someone bad, then maybe we can try to help each other.”

“Um…fair enough. I have Futabatei’s secret.” The meaning of this slowly sunk into my mind. “…Oh.”

“Looks like we’re stuck in the same canoe again.” Shinozuka’s smile only got more sad. “Now we _both_ have questionable alibis and the means to commit the crime. I’m going to look into that and try to help you start building a case for your innocence. Because, well….”

I found myself getting mildly irritated when Shinozuka trailed off. “Because what? What’s the matter?”

“This is kind of hard to say, but…I have this sinking suspicion that someone’s trying to **frame you** for this crime. I haven’t found much evidence to support that yet, but my intuition is really screaming at me right now. I know that _you_ didn’t do it, but I think you need to be really careful going forward. In fact, unless someone asks, I wouldn’t go around telling everyone whose secret you have. It’ll make you look really bad.”

“Frame…me?” _“Why would someone think to blame me, of all people, for this crime? Wouldn’t it be way easier to blame someone in the kitchen staff?”_

“Like I said, I don’t have much evidence to prove it yet. It’s just a hunch based on some of the stuff I’ve found so far. Still, I’d be a little more careful if I were you. You’re one of the ones who was trying to assert that nothing was going to happen. That makes you one of the suspicious ones right now. But…don’t let me keep you away from Futabatei and your investigation for any longer than I need to. That’s all I really wanted to say to you. I think I told you everything I know about the situation, so you shouldn’t need to come back.”

“Fair enough. Well…goodbye, Shinozuka. I’ll see you during the trial.”

Shinozuka smiled at me, though something was tentative about it. “Yeah. I hope you’ll be able to prove your innocence by then. And when you do that, I think it should be easy to figure out who the real culprit is….”

As I left Shinozuka alone in the cellar to return to the dining room, I realized the importance of his words. Did that imply that he knew who the real culprit was already? Is that why he was searching in the wine cellar when he’d otherwise have no reason to be there? Is that why he was trying so hard to find reasons why he would be suspicious…?

I couldn’t dwell on the point much longer before I climbed out of the cellar and saw Futabatei standing nearby the door speaking with Ebina. Something was noticeably changed about Ebina’s disposition—she looked a lot less tense than she did when we left her—and Futabatei was considerably less upset than she’d seemed when we were with Shinozuka. “—paying attention the entire time,” I heard Futabatei say. “Otherwise, it’s null and void.”

“I promise I was paying close attention to everything around me,” Ebina ensured her. “And I can confirm that, definitely, the only people to speak to me were Igarashi and Teshima.”

“That’s very interesting…thank you, Ebina. You’re a great service to this investigation.” The girls bowed to each other before Futabatei turned back to me. “Oh, you’re finally back. Did you get any new information out of Shinozuka?”

After a moment of consideration, I decided to tell her most of the information Shinozuka told me about the empty bottle, our alibis, our secrets, and his suspicion that someone was trying to frame me. When all was said and done, she appeared rather agitated. “Ooh! You don’t know how much that sort of contrary behavior annoys me,” she hissed. “That boy has something to hide, I’m sure of it. He couldn’t have chosen to investigate here based on ‘a hunch’ and then got written permission to investigate just based on that. Not to mention the suspicious language he was using…even if he’s not the culprit, I’m sure that he must be **involved in the crime** in some way.  But that’s not the important part—you’re suspicious of him, too, right?”

“Well, I do have to admit…he told me himself that he has a weak alibi and the means to commit the crime. As of now, he’s looking like a really likely suspect.”

“Well, even if I agree with you, let’s go through the formalities so you can start to understand what I’ll require of you before I’ll hand over my profiles. What specific evidence suggests that Shinozuka could have something to do with this?”

I thought long and hard about what I would tell her. “Well, Igarashi mentioned that it looked like Hano was hit by a **left-handed culprit** , right? Shinozuka mentioned that too—even though I **never saw him investigate the crime scene**. Not only that, but he told me that **he’s left-handed** , which matches the profile of the culprit that we have mocked up so far. Shinozuka’s the only person who could’ve snuck through the kitchen without being noticed by Ebina, Uehara, or Ootomo because he doesn’t have much of a presence—”

“That evidence is circumstantial and makes too many logical leaps. You’ll need to try a little harder than that.”

“Darn, okay. Um, well…we figured out that Shinozuka and I both had **the means** to commit the crime. **He had Erizawa’s secret** , and according to Erizawa’s testimony about the alibis of the kitchen staff, **Erizawa was alone in the kitchen** a few times tonight. If someone can prove that he was alone in there at the time of the murder, then that would make Shinozuka really suspicious.”

“Fair point…I don’t recall the exact times of our shifts, but it’s possible that Erizawa could have been alone in the kitchen around the time of the murder. All I definitively remember is that Igarashi disappeared somewhere around the time when Hano was said to be killed.” Futabatei bit the inside of her lip, clearly deep in thought. “Anyway, you’ve made a fair argument so far. Can you crystallize it for me so it’s easier to understand?”

“Of course.” I nodded my head with determination. “Shinozuka is suspicious because he **has** **information about the crime scene that he shouldn’t know, shares the same dominant hand as the culprit** , **and had** **had the ability to commit the crime** without being accused by any witnesses in the kitchen if the timelines match up like we think they do. Is that good enough to earn me a profile?”

Futabatei smiled, looking as proud as she probably would have if I’d suddenly revealed my ability to make coffee to her. “Yes, Yuu, that was wonderful. I’m very proud of your deduction skills. Now then, let me remember what I’d written down for him…I’m sure it’ll give us a lot of insight into what his motives could have been.

“Let’s see…Toshi Shinozuka is a boy who will **bend to anyone’s will**. Though he isn’t as bad about this as Ebina, if he ‘respects’ someone, he **will do anything for them** in an attempt to be noticed, recognized, or appreciated by them. It’s obvious that he wants **fame and recognition** for solving mysteries because I wonder how such a **wimpy, scared little boy** could feel comfortable in such a field of work if, as I’ve well deciphered, **those fears are not part of any mask**. His sudden change in disposition between our first few days here and our last two is also something **suspicious** to look into. It’s possible that it occurred for legitimate reasons, but because he’s **shifty** and constantly **running around avoiding everyone** , it’s hard to know for sure. There’s also the matter of him recognizing our faces along with Igarashi’s—who I’m sure we mustn’t have gotten along with even back then. Perhaps we were close friends with Shinozuka sometime then, but I’m sure that he did something to effectively **take Igarashi’s side** in some grand argument and **betray our trust** , possibly in an attempt to **make** **himself more prominent in our class’s eyes**. That’s all meaningless conjecture, though, so you shouldn’t consider it too much. And…that’s all I’ve been able to decipher about him so far.”

I let this analysis soak in my mind for a few moments before I said anything. “So even if he’s not the culprit,” I concluded, “you think that he has some **inside knowledge** about what’s going on here?”

“As far as I can see it, there are only three possibilities when it comes to him,” Futabatei explained. “Either he’s **the** **culprit** , he’s an **accomplice** **to** **the** **culprit** who found a way to tamper with the scene, or **the** **culprit** **confided** **classified** **information** **in** **him** for whatever reason. They’re all equally possible, based on your evidence—him being left-handed makes it likely that he’s the culprit, his ability to access the kitchen cellar makes it look like he could have tampered with the scene, and his unusual knowledge of the crime scene suggests that he’s come in contact with the culprit and discussed the crime with them—but I’m completely convinced that Toshi Shinozuka is, without a doubt, **not innocent** in the grand scheme of things.”

“W-Well, isn’t there some way that he was **tricked** into looking this suspicious? Couldn’t he have been **blackmailed** by someone in class? It all just seems a little too suspicious to be true.”

Futabatei gave me a knowing glare. “His secret was exposed already, don’t you remember? The motive **couldn’t possibly apply to him**. And I can only see him as a victim of trickery if the culprit suddenly cornered him to admit to their transgressions against his will, thus tricking him into giving out classified information that only the culprit would know by accident. But that begs the question—why would Shinozuka willingly hold onto information as vital as **the culprit’s identity** without telling the rest of us?”

_“I don’t want to think that he could be doing that to us…even if we haven’t talked much, I see Shinozuka as being a good friend. It pains me to think that he might be lying to us. There’s a_ chance _that Futabatei could be wrong about him, but that doesn’t seem likely. No, I have to hold out hope in him. Maybe he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the motive, I’m sure that he could be facing pressure from the culprit right now. There_ has _to be a way for Futabatei’s analysis to be correct without it meaning that Shinozuka is being dishonest. I just know it.”_

Before I could ponder this any further, the monitor in the corner of the dining room turned on to reveal Monokuma in his usual doctor’s garb behind his doctor’s desk of macabre oddities. “Wehh, not again!” Ootomo cried, looking more upset by the bear’s appearance than I’d ever seen her about anything before. “Make him go away, Shinobu!”

“W-W-What do you expect _me_ to do about it? And why are you hugging me like that? I-I’m not one of the boys you can target here…!” Ebina screeched as she attempted to dislodge Ootomo from her waist with minimal success. Realizing that this meant Ootomo was stronger than a trained pilot in the military made me much more fearful of the girl.

Once Ootomo seemed to be done with her dramatic outburst, Monokuma spoke. “Hel- _lo_ , patients of Hiroishiya! Our very first heart-pounding class trial will be called into session very soon! All patients must meet on the balcony in the foyer ASAP—no absences allowed! I hope you’re all as excited as I am. Be seeing you~!” After giving us a coy wave, the bear disappeared behind a flash of black that encompassed the screen.  

There was a stunning silence in the dining hall as my classmates and I, as if sharing a mind, stood still. We all feared whatever punishment Monokuma promised for us, but none of us wanted to be the first to resign ourselves to our fates. In our minds, leaving through that door was effectively giving up any hope of fighting against the bear’s game, promising that his authority wouldn’t be—

“Well, what are we waiting for? We mustn’t keep the bear waiting.” We all jumped when, out of seemingly nowhere, Igarashi appeared so that he could herd us out into the foyer. I tried to stop him so I could question again where he was at the time of the murder, but he ignored me entirely and continued onward. _“He won’t be able to ignore me in the class trial,”_ I ensured myself. _“When everyone starts asking the same question, he won’t be able to disregard us.”_

Most everyone was gathered in the foyer when Futabatei and I entered, including members of our class who had been mostly absent during the investigation such as Kajiwara and Sugita. “The fucker that did this is going to regret it,” Sugita said quietly; I could smell cigarette smoke on her breath and assumed that the reason why I hadn’t seen her investigating was because she was out smoking. That, paired with the faraway look in her eye, made me wonder just how much this murder affected her behind closed doors. “That kid was a smartass, but he was innocent. The culprit’ll have to deal with _me_ before they can start worrying about what that bear’s gonna do to them.”

 “I’m not ready for this, man…!” Tajima murmured. “I mean, how’re we ever gonna figure this out!? We’re justa buncha kids, we’re no investigators!”

“I’m similarly concerned.” Fujita’s voice was lighter than usual. “I would ordinarily hire people to investigate for me. That being said, I’ve found that my investigation skills are inadequate, to say the least.”

“We just need to stay sharp,” Nonaka said in a monotone. “They always manage to find the culprits in crime dramas. I think we’ll be fine.”

“B-but,” Ootomo said, her voice shaking, “won’t the culprit get in trouble if they’re caught?”

“Well I don’t know about the _bear_ , but whoever killed my friend Hano-chi is gonna get a knuckle sandwich from me when we find them!” Shimizu cried out, but she didn’t seem too serious. _“I doubt she could punch any of her friends even if she tried…”_ I thought.

When I saw that Kajiwara was being unusually quiet and I remembered her breakdown after the meeting, I approached her and attempted to make small talk. “Hey, Kajiwara. How did your investigation go? How do you think we’ll do during the trial?”

Kajiwara seemed deep in thought—I worried for a moment that she didn’t hear me before she suddenly turned around with a start. “Oh! Teshima. I apologize, I was just…considering something.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“The bear has been talking about a ‘punishment’ more than I would like.” Deep-rooted despair was visible in her dark eyes. “He has been intentionally vague with his wording when it comes to that. It makes me worry…I doubt that what he has in mind will be a gentle slap on the wrist. All of the evidence I can find and the information I have concerning **the past** seems to suggest otherwise.”

“That reminds me, Kajiwara,” Futabatei said, “you’ve been mentioning Hope’s Peak’s past since the beginning. During Monokuma’s first presentation, you seemed to understand what was happening a lot sooner than the rest of us. Is there information about this situation that you’re hiding from us?”

“Hiding from you? I don’t know what’s happened to make you so accusatory, Futabatei,” Kajiwara replied, “but I’ve answered this question before. My family gained its military fame from Hope’s Peak a long time ago. I was told stories about the school ever since I was young. My family usually avoids the details surrounding Hope’s Peak’s original closing, but I’ve heard a few slips of info. These slips, by in large, involved talks of robotic bears, mutual killing games, and despair. I thought for a moment that Monokuma’s appearance may have been a coincidence at first—perhaps he was Hiroishiya’s mascot—but when he mentioned Hope’s Peak, I grew to understand the more sinister implication of his presence here. Then he mentioned his hope, despair, and mutual killing game, and everything began clicking into place.” Her face turned dark again. “That’s why I want to avoid seeing any more death here if we can help it. Those mutual killing games were responsible for the fall of Hope’s Peak and the deaths of many students who, if they were alive today, probably would have benefited our world in serious ways.”

“What does that have to do with the ‘punishment’ Monokuma keeps mentioning, then?” Futabatei asked. “Do you know what it is?”

“I have a hunch…but I don’t want to spread unnecessary despair if I’m incorrect. We should just evade his ‘punishment’ to the best of our abilities…though I guess the culprit won’t be able to help it.”

“Wow! I’m so popular that even _Kajiwara_ likes talking about me behind my back! I feel so honored!” Monokuma suddenly appeared on the same balcony he once greeted us from on our first day of imprisonment with a frightening ‘boing’. “Hey, you bastards! Is everyone accounted for?” When nobody responded, Monokuma just laughed. “Fair enough! Well, I guess we’re going, then! After you all!”

Everyone shuffled around a bit, unsure of what he meant. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Erizawa said. “Where are we meant to go?”

“Oh, that’s right! Showing you the _door_ for the elevator would probably help. That’s easily fixed, though! _Presto_ ~! He tapped the plain wall behind the balcony and, suddenly, elevator doors opened for us all to step into. “Right down here,” he said. “And remember, the penalty for not showing up to a class trial is _steep_ , so if any of you bastards are planning on running off, think again!”

Nervously, we all climbed up the stairs and stepped into the elevator. Once we were all shepherded in, the doors slid shut and the elevator rumbled into its rough descent to the depths of Hiroishiya. I could hear the breathing of all of my classmates around me, all showing different levels of fear, sadness, and determination. I tried to compose myself the best as I could—the sight of our class together, sans Hano, depressed me. If he were here, I’m sure he would have been making fun of everyone for their long faces and wondering what the big deal was. He would be terrified at the idea of the trial, but excited by the idea of seeing our class in action. Because beyond his mean façade, he always seemed to have a lot of respect for most of our talents. _“That’s why we need to find his killer,”_ I told myself. _“Someone took him away from us before we got the chance to find out who he_ really _was. He never got to fully trust us before he was taken away. We have to find justice for him and leave to tell everyone about the Hano we got to meet.”_

In spite of the culprit who took his life, and in spite of our despair, we _would_ escape. We’d do it for Hano’s sake, just like he’d want us to.


	10. Chapter 1 - Class Trial (Part One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuta Teshima and his classmates fight for their lives in a class trial as they try to discover who killed their beloved classmate.

\--CLASS TRIAL—

The courtroom was unlike anything we’d ever seen. It was large and extremely spacious, with 16 podiums labeled with names stood out in a circle. At the head of the circle was a tiny throne, where it looked like Monokuma was going to sit. I couldn’t help but wonder what this sort of room was doing in a place that was meant to be a rehab center—it didn’t have any obvious purpose outside of housing these class trials—but I chalked it up to Monokuma’s meddling and left it at that.

Projected onto the courtroom’s walls, which were covered with large monitor-like screens that covered the true walls, were swirling, golden designs that reminded me of leaves on vines in front of a pleasant mint green background. This calming display, along with the scent of peppermint abounding, should have made me calm. Instead, I was filled with sickening nostalgia as I remembered the enthusiasm I saw in Hano’s eyes when he saw the plants in the sunroom and the smell he’d have on his clothes after gathering herbs and spices for the kitchen. I noticed with a jolt that a portrait of Hano—standing at approximately his height—took his place at his intended podium, a bloody ‘X’ covering his face.

"Ah yes, the class trial! I've been looking forward to this.” Monokuma’s grin grew as he clapped his hands together. "Since this is your first time at the rodeo, I should probably explain what’s going on. This will be a debate centered around discovering Haruki Hano’s killer using the evidence you’ve found. As you know, the culprit can only be one of the bastards you see in the little ring you’ve got here. At the trial’s conclusion, all of you will need to vote for the bastard you think is the perpetrator of the crime. Then, after their punishment is finished, life here will return to normal...well, until another murder drags you back. Upupupupu!"

“That punishment you’ve mentioned…that seems to confirm my theories.” Kajiwara adjusted her glasses, a solemn look in her eyes. “We must finger the culprit with care. Otherwise, I’m sure that the rest of us will face punishment from Monokuma.”

“Wow, that’s exactly right! It’s almost like you’ve been through this song and dance before, Kajiwara,” Monokuma sang. “Wait…you haven’t been cheating on me with another animatronic despair machine, have you?! You whore!”

Kajiwara just sighed. “Enough with these shenanigans. We need to begin this trial as soon as possible. Otherwise, we may not have enough time….”

_“What does Kajiwara mean? What could the punishment possibly be, if she and Monokuma are being so vague about it? And what does she mean, we ‘may not have enough time’?”_ I wondered. _“Well, that doesn’t matter…we’ll have to try our best no matter what. I don’t want to see Hano’s killer leave without getting the justice they deserve.”_

"Well, let’s start by getting a cursory overview of how Hano died. From what I saw, it seemed kind of brutal," Mitsukuri suggested.

"According to the Monokuma File," Igarashi explained, "Hano was struck in the head with a **blunt, glass object**. This means that his cause of death was **blunt force trauma to the head**. Any objections?"

"That sounds about right," Ootomo said. "Poor Haruki...I can only imagine how he must have felt after getting attacked. He must have been lying there, lonely, wondering why it had to be him...He probably **cried** , just like I did..."

"But, there's no way any of us could have done it…!" Erizawa asserted, seeming somewhat frustrated. "Who could’ve had the **chance to kill Mr. Hano** in the cellar while we—no, while _I_ was cooking...?!"

"But it only could have been one of us," Kajiwara said. "The crime scene **clearly indicates foul play** , so it couldn’t have been some eccentric suicide."

"Well, it _could_ have been Monokuma..." Uehara said.

"Uh, let's try to stick to blaming _secular_ things for his death for now," Shinozuka said nervously. "I don’t want to think that something **supernatural** like Monokuma could be responsible…That thought is a little scary, isn’t it?"

"Shinochi’s right!" Shimizu exclaimed. "So, um...what were we talking about again?"

_“I guess this is the part where I need to point out some kind of contradiction in their discussion,”_ I thought. _“Something that doesn’t cotton with the evidence that we found during the investigation…and I think I know what that contradiction was.”_ "Well, hold on…Hano wouldn't have cried after being struck, Ootomo," I said. “In fact, he wouldn’t have been able to ‘feel’ anything.”

"W-what? Why not?" Ootomo whimpered. "He wasn't...p-paralyzed, was he?"

"No, nothing like that," I said. "If you look at the Monokuma File, it says that Hano was killed instantly when he was hit. If that’s the case, he wouldn’t have been able to cry or feel bad about it."

"Y-you're right…!” Ootomo looked more than a little bit miserable. "I'm sorry. I guess I didn't read the file well enough."

"That's all well and good," Nonaka said, "but ultimately, it doesn't mean anything if we don't know what the murder weapon was."

"I don’t understand what you mean, Nonaka.” Igarashi frowned in his direction. “I’m sure I saw you investigate the crime scene. Didn’t you see the flower vase sitting nearby the body? The one that was covered with the culprit’s fingerprints? That was obviously the murder weapon. There were no other objects at the crime scene that would match the description given by the Monokuma File.”

"I can see where you’re coming from," Mitsukuri said, "but that’s not _necessarily_ true. There were a bunch of mason jars and stuff on the shelves in the cellar, weren’t there? One of those could have been used as the murder weapon."

Uehara shook his head. "That’s impossible. If the murder weapon was taken from the shelves, then it would have had blood on it."

"The culprit cleaned it, then! Cut and dry!" Tajima took on a confident stance and grinned.

It was obvious that Nonaka was getting frustrated. "Cleaned it with _what_ , exactly? If it had been cleaned with anything in the cellar, we would have found that item and seen the blood. And the culprit _obviously_ didn’t clean anything off with their clothes.”

"True, true..." Shimizu said. "And the vase _was_ bloody, so that makes it even more likely that it was the murder weapon!"

"Let’s leave the murder weapon be for now, then. Everyone but Nonaka can agree that it was the flower vase.” Igarashi looked as calm as ever as he crossed his arms and looked thoughtfully at the designs on the wall. “What I _don’t_ understand is what has him so convinced that the murder weapon was anything else.”

“I think I understand why,” I interjected. “The description of the murder weapon _was_ pretty vague, wasn’t it? There are a lot of blunt glass objects in the rehab center. If it’s possible that the weapon was anything other than the flower vase, then it would take a lot of suspicion away from the kitchen staff.”

“Oh?” It was clear that Futabatei was feigning surprise so that she could encourage me to continue. “And why is that, Yuu?” 

“The flower vase was put in the sunroom with the rose in Hano’s hand at the beginning of the kitchen crew’s dinner service,” I explained. “And since Fujita didn’t see anyone go out through the front doors of Hiroishiya all night, only the people who had access to the kitchen—IE, the kitchen staff—could have retrieved it to use as a murder weapon.”

"Hm...It seems like the kitchen staff has a lot to explain now that they've all been placed at the top of our suspect list.” Fujita gave a coy smile to the kitchen staffers, making them all freeze in place.  

Igarashi scoffed. "Don’t be silly. I can be held accountable for the kitchen staffs’ alibis. I was in the kitchen serving as a monitor. If they engaged in any suspicious behavior, I would have said so by now.”

“You know something about their alibis? Maybe you should enlighten us, then,” Kajiwara said. “Tell us what your kitchen service was like.”

“Our dinner service went **very well** , all things considered,” Igarashi said. “Of course, that much should have been expected. I was in charge of it, after all.”

“Ootomo and I worked on the dessert and the appetizers, respectively,” Uehara told us. “We entered the kitchen **a while before** we discovered Hano’s body. Before then, we were speaking to each other in the dining room. Isn’t that right, Ebina?”

Ebina saluted us. “Yes! Ootomo and Uehara remained in the dining room until their shift began! I didn’t see them get up to any mischief! Continue!” 

“I stayed in the kitchen without leaving until my coffee was finished. That was around **fifteen minutes after** Hano’s estimated time of death, I think,” Futabatei added. “ **I didn’t leave the kitchen before then**.”

“I stayed in the kitchen for much of the night, as well,” Erizawa added. “I was working on the main course. **I never left** , either.”

“Did you all hear that? Futabatei, Erizawa and I never left the kitchen last night. Uehara and Ootomo never left the dining room before their shifts in the kitchen began. Our alibis are **airtight**. Thus, none of the members of the kitchen staff can be held accountable for this crime. Are there any other questions?” Igarashi looked more than ready to move onto another point of business.

“I suppose not,” Fujita murmured. “That’s a shame…I thought this would give us a definitive suspect….”

“That just means we need to buckle down and keep trying!” Mitsukuri shouted. “There _has_ to be **someone here who doesn’t have an alibi**! We just need to root them out and start our interrogation!”

_“As much as I don’t want to believe it, the kitchen staffers_ do _look really suspicious…even if the murder weapon was something else, there’s no evidence that anyone other than them could have gotten into the cellar. But if that’s the case, then that means there’s an inconsistency somewhere in their testimony. But where…?”_ After thinking it over for a while, things suddenly clicked in place for me. “Wait! Erizawa,” I called out. “Go over what you just said again.”

“H-Huh? Well, okay.” Erizawa seemed to think that this was a waste of time, but he was really good at hiding it. “I said that I worked in the kitchen preparing the main course all night. I didn’t leave until it was done.”

“Really? That’s strange. I have evidence that seems to prove otherwise.” I observed the information I wrote concerning the alibis of the kitchen staff and looked up at Erizawa with a serious expression. “According to the testimonies of your fellow kitchen staffers and my eyewitness account from the time, you left the kitchen **multiple times** through the night as you assisted Ootomo and Uehara in arranging the dining room and let the main course cook. How can you say that you stayed in the kitchen all night if that’s clearly not the case?”

“Oh!” Erizawa seemed so surprised that I thought his mob cap was about to fall off. “T-That’s true!”

“Well, Erizawa? Why were you running in and out of the kitchen all night? From what I’ve been able to gather, the dining room was arranged very quickly after the dinner service began, so you couldn’t have had anything to do with that. What reason would you have to continue leaving?” Nonaka questioned.

“U-Um, I-I…” Erizawa stuttered, but before he could get out a straight answer, Igarashi spoke for him.

“The answer to that question is simple. In order to keep Erizawa from being overworked, I allowed him to leave the kitchen for periodic breaks during the night,” Igarashi explained.

“You didn’t _allow_ me to leave,” Erizawa said with some insolence, “you _kicked me out_. Of _my kitchen_ , no less! There aren’t many greater insults than that…!”

“Oh come on! You’ve been cookin’ for us every day ‘n night for the last couple’a days now, kid! You’re bound to get exhausted eventually! In that sense, I can see where this nutjob’s comin’ from!” Tajima said. “You don’t gotta keep doin’ all this nice stuff for us just b’cause you want us to _like_ you, ‘ya know. I dunno if I can speak for everybody else, but _I_ like you whedda ‘ya cook us food or not!”

This made Erizawa’s cheeks turn red. “Really? I don’t know if I’ve ever been complimented like that before!…Or… _was_ that a compliment? What with how fast you’re talking and your urban accent, it’s kind of hard to tell….”

“Casual ship teasing aside, we should really get back on topic.” Fujita giggled a bit at the boys. “I suppose Igarashi’s explanation for Erizawa’s transiency is sufficient for now. So if I’m understanding things correctly, Igarashi stayed in the kitchen all night overseeing the dinner service. Futabatei stayed in the kitchen making her coffee until she finished it and shared it with the rest of us. Erizawa was in the kitchen from the beginning, but he was sent out by Igarashi every once in a while to ensure that he wouldn’t overwork himself. Meanwhile, Ootomo and Uehara sat outside of the kitchen like useless lumps until, at a time long after Hano had begun decomposing in the cellar, they joined Erizawa in the kitchen to begin preparing their parts of the dinner. Does that sound like a fair summary?”

_“Well, almost…there’s just one thing that’s bothering me right now.”_ “Actually, Igarashi wasn’t in the kitchen all night like he claims he was,” I pointed out. “According to Futabatei and Erizawa’s testimonies, he disappeared without a trace at approximately the time of Hano’s murder and didn’t appear again until after the corpse announcement had already sounded. Can you tell us what you were doing in that time, Igarashi?”

“I’m sorry?!” Igarashi’s expression flipped in an instant, going from distant and aloof to offended and deathly before I could process what was going on. “That’s patently false. You’re just saying that to cover your _own_ tracks, Teshima!”

“Don’t spin this around to blame things on him!” Futabatei snapped. “Erizawa and I can _both_ testify that you disappeared from the kitchen last night!”

“But can you remember _when_? Unless you have a specific time stamp for that exit that comes before Hano’s time of death, then I have an alibi.”

This is when Futabatei hesitated, but it was clear that she wasn’t about to give up that easily. “If my memory is right, then you disappeared at roughly about the time Hano was said to have been killed. We didn’t see where you went, but since Ebina, Ootomo, and Uehara never saw you in the foyer, it’s safe to say that you went into the kitchen cellar in order to commit this murder!”

“U-Um, actually—”Erizawa tried to interject, but Igarashi interrupted him.

“Or the _sunroom_? Remember, there were spices to be found in the sunroom as well as flowers. As you no doubt know, any proper dish required the proper amount of herbs and spices to be considered truly delectable. Erizawa asked if I would retrieve some spices from the sunroom for him and I obliged. Because it was dark, it took me a while to find the ingredients he needed.”

“And I—” Erizawa began, but he was cut off again.

“That’s not what Erizawa was saying earlier,” I pointed out. “Earlier, Erizawa said that had no idea where you went. He told me that he didn’t see you come back until Uehara and Ootomo were in the kitchen, fifteen minutes before the body was found.”

“Excuse me! I’m trying very hard to speak right now.” We were all surprised when Erizawa suddenly cried out from the other side of the courtroom. “It’s kind of rude to talk about someone as if they’re not in the room, isn’t it? I can testify for myself, you know. Because I was in the kitchen all night—when I wasn’t being _kicked out_ , that is—I think I can testify better than anyone else about what was going on in there throughout the night and clear up any problems there may have been with my testimony beforehand.”

“Go ahead, kid. We’re all ears,” Sugita said in a softer tone than I was used to, before regaining her usual sharp edge and adding, “ _got_ it, pinheads? Listen up.”

Erizawa sighed, but it was clear that he was more relieved and embarrassed than he was frustrated. “I’ll do the best I can. Catch me if I say anything that doesn’t make sense, okay? I’ll try to clear it up.”

Erizawa took off his mobcap and played with it in his hands while he spoke. “When I testified during the investigation, things were a little **different**. I was really **frustrated** , so I threw out accusations and made assumptions so we could try to get to the bottom of things. I said that I didn’t know when anything happened at the time.”

“Wait, you were frustrated? Why were you frustrated?” Mitsukuri questioned.

“W-Well… **how did a murder happen right under my nose**?! I-I’m trying to be helpful, but how helpful can I be if I just _let_ a murder happen **right next to me** without doing anything about it?! I’m a very observant person—things like that don’t just slip past me. So then, **why didn’t I see a murderer enter**?!”

Shimizu gasped. “Someone could have snuck in when Igarin made you leave, Eri-chi! Then the kitchen would’ve been empty!”

“That’s not true. I **never left the kitchen** if there wasn’t anyone there to take care of the main dish while I was gone, and since **Mr**. **Igarashi was out of my hair** by that point, I decided to stay until Miss Ootomo and Mr. Uehara entered **.** By that point, **the murder had already happened**. Even if someone went into the kitchen cellar after that, there’s **no guarantee** that they were the murderer.”

“Did you see anyone go into the kitchen while you were alone?!” Ebina questioned dutifully.

It took Erizawa a moment, but he shook his head. “No. No one else showed up until Miss Ootomo, Mr. Uehara, and Mr. Igarashi did.”

“Well, can you give us a timeline of events now that you’re enlightened?” Uehara asked.

“Sure, I can try…The dinner service started at **around 5:30.** Sometime **before** **5:55** , Mr. Teshima tried to enter the kitchen but got stopped at the door. It was around then that **Mr**. **Igarashi began making me take breaks**. Not long after that, I asked Mr. Igarashi to get me spices from the sunroom. It took him a long time, so **I stopped in to check on him after a while**. When I came back to the kitchen, **Miss** **Futabatei had left with her coffee** , so I went back to my station to keep cooking. **That was at about 6:05.** I told you what happened after that, so I shouldn’t need to go into any further detail. I just hope my testimony serviced the court well.” Erizawa bowed respectfully to us.

I was about to stop Erizawa so I could point out a contradiction I saw, but Futabatei beat me to it. “As someone who stayed in the kitchen all night before my coffee was finished,” she began, “I can confirm that Erizawa and Igarashi never said anything about spices. Igarashi never went out to the sunroom, as far as I saw. And I can tell you that the two of them **weren’t in the sunroom when Yuu and I entered** because we can recite, verbatim, what Erizawa said when we entered! Here, Yuu, finish this sentence—you were there, so you should remember what he said. It was something along the lines of, ‘Oh, Mr. Igarashi said you weren’t allowed in the kitchen earlier…but he’s been micromanaging this dinner from the beginning, so it must feel nice to subvert his authority like this.’”

_“Don’t you think you’re putting a lot of pressure on me?! If I don’t remember exactly what he said, I’ll probably be worse off than I started! I really need to rack my mind and hope that whatever I come up with will trigger his memory….”_ “And then he added…‘Don’t tell him I said that, but I wish _I_ could break the rules like that without worrying about being kicked to the curb.’ Does that sound about right, Erizawa?”

Igarashi gave him a pointed look, but Erizawa nodded. “Yes, that’s what I said…and many thanks for honoring my wishes! I told you not to tell Mr. Igarashi, and you told everyone in class instead!” He laughed a nervous, angry laugh. “That’s just great! Now I’ll be fired for sure…!”

“I don’t get why Erizawa would lie about something like that though,” Mitsukuri observed. “I mean, who’d want to be convicted of following Igarashi out into a dark room when there was a murder just next door? It would be a lot safer to put yourself at least ten meters away from him!”

“That ties into a question I have for you, Erizawa,” I said. “Why has your testimony changed so much between now and when we first asked you about the crime?”

“Huh? W-Wait, did I say something wrong? I can fix it!” Erizawa jittered in place, clearly itching to physically ‘fix’ his testimony however he could.

“It’s not that you said anything ‘wrong’. I’m just a bit confused…at the beginning of your testimony just now, you told everyone that you didn’t remember the exact times at which anything happened ‘at first’. That means that you’re recanting whatever you said earlier tonight because you’re acknowledging that you’re not sure. That’s fair, but it’s strange how you seem to know precisely when everything happened now, even going as far as giving us specific timestamps. So then, how did you learn the times between the investigation and now?”

“It’s not anything dramatic or interesting. I just stepped back for a minute, relaxed, and made myself remember when everything happened.” Erizawa gave a long look to his boots. “I’m sorry for the confusion.”

“Don’t apologize, none of this is your fault…It’s the fault of the person who ‘helped you relax’. The person who fed you words to say during the trial to save his own skin.” I looked at Igarashi with a glare. “You obviously gave him that information when you talked in the cellar earlier. I knew that you were trying to stir up trouble, but did you really lie to Erizawa to make him give you an alibi?”

Igarashi looked scandalized. “Who, me? You’re joking. How would I have orchestrated something extravagant like that? I didn’t get Erizawa to lie for me. I’m not some kind of criminal mastermind.”

“You could’a had _me_ fooled a couple’a times there….” Tajima muttered.

“But you obviously told him _some_ information to give in his testimony,” I argued. “Earlier, he told me that **he had no idea what time it was** throughout the dinner service because he was busy cooking—now, after talking to you, he knows all of the times exactly. He told us in this very testimony that **he never left his food unattended** and that he **never let the kitchen stay empty** , but then he directly contradicted that by saying that he **left the kitchen for a minute to visit you in the sunroom** during a time when we know that Futabatei, Ootomo, and Uehara wouldn't have been there. There are too many holes for his story to stand true, so we have to look at why he might be saying these things…and it seems to me that every contradiction in Erizawa’s testimony works towards giving you a **clear alibi**. So, as it stands, **you’re the person who would stand to gain the most from Erizawa’s revised testimony**.”

“But you’d have a very good motive to convince the court that Erizawa’s testimony is false, Teshima,” Shinozuka pointed out—due to his lack of involvement in the previous stages of the trial, I was surprised to hear his voice. “You said that you helped Futabatei get her coffee out of the kitchen, right? And you said that you **had her secret** , right? If Erizawa’s testimony is true and Futabatei was left in the kitchen alone, then **you had the means to commit the murder**.”

“W-What?! Shinozuka, what are you talking about?!” I cried. _“Shinozuka told me himself that we shouldn’t tell anyone whose secret I got, but he just announced it to the court in an attempt to discredit me! What is he trying to do?! He told me that he suspects someone is trying to frame me, so why would he try to make me look more suspicious? Is he…betraying me?”_ I couldn’t help but remember the profile Futabatei gave me earlier where she theorized that Shinozuka once betrayed us in some great display in order to make himself look better. _“Has he really been using me this entire time…?”_

“And it’s not just that,” Shinozuka continued, seemingly ignoring the terror and hurt on my face. “Notice how the first person to jump to Teshima’s defense whenever he’s accused of anything is **Futabatei**. She probably knows something we don’t about what Teshima’s done. So, taking advantage of the motive, Teshima’s blackmailed her into protecting him during this trial under the threat of revealing her secret to the court. All in all, if we trust Erizawa here, things look pretty bad for him.”

“And he was also seen attempting to enter the kitchen earlier in the night, was he not?” Fujita observed. “Hmm…things may not be as they once seemed….”

“Come on, that’s ridiculous! Yuu has nothing to do with this crime! There’s no physical evidence linking him to the scene!” Futabatei argued.

“That’s just the sort of desperate argument someone would use if they knew that their opponent was close to striking gold.” Nonaka shook his head. “Really, he’s not worth protecting anymore, Futabatei. You can go ahead and feed him to the sharks now, if you’d like. Your secret won't make us think any less of you so long as you tell us the truth.”

I didn’t know what to do as voices—some real, some not—started sounding all around me as they considered my guilt. Futabatei was right—there wasn’t anything physical to tie me to the scene, as far as we could see—but it was obvious that this wouldn’t be enough to extinguish everyone’s suspicions. At a loss for what else I could say, I complained, “Shinozuka, why are you doing this? I-I thought you were going to help me! Y-You said you thought someone was framing me, but now…!”

“Shinozuka is bringing the truth to light, Teshima. If you’re not a fan of it, then you shouldn’t have committed this heinous crime to begin with.” Igarashi looked so proud of himself that I thought he was about to burst. “So, the truth comes out—Yuuta Teshima had the **means, the motive, and no alibi**. Not only that, but he **tampered with evidence at a crime scene** in order to hide evidence. So, shall we vote him guilty?”

“I knew that you two were trouble.” Futabatei’s deep growl beside me made me flinch. “It’s clear that you’re both trying to cover for each other. There’s no doubt in my mind that both of you have something to do with this crime, so you’re conspiring together to make Yuu look suspicious when it’s really _you two_ who look the most suspicious.”

“What? How are _they_ suspicious? We cleared up all of the confusion with Cultist Barbie and his alibi and nobody saw the Ghost all evening,” Sugita said.

“Cultist Barbie…?” Igarashi tried out his new nickname with a troubled expression. “I think I’ve been called everything now….”

“W-Well…let’s overlook the circumstantial side of this argument. We have hard evidence from the crime scene that can tell us who likely committed the crime and how. I-I mean, after all, for all we know, we’re barking up the wrong tree.” I shrugged, trying my absolute best not to panic under the critical eyes of my classmates.

“You don’t think we’re onto sumthin’? I mean _yeah_ , I still can’t see ya as the culprit, but I can tell from how excited everyone’s gettin’ that things are lookin’ pretty bad for ya, man.” Tajima crossed his arms and looked away with a troubled, pensive expression.

“I see what you need to do, Yuuta! I believe in you!” Ootomo exclaimed. “You should bring up another strange thing about the case so that people stop wondering who was where!”

_“Shut up! If you announce my plan to everyone, then they’ll never let me live it down!”_ I thought, frustrated. _“Well, thanks to Ootomo, it seems like I’ll need something_ really _serious  if I want to get their minds off of my guilt. But what…?”_

“Well…who entered the wine cellar?” Shinozuka certainly looked shocked that I was going in this direction, but everyone else in my class only looked confused. “When I investigated there, it looked like a huge mess. There was a broken bottle on the ground, a big puddle of wine, a bunch of dirty rags, an empty bottle….”

“I’m sorry, Teshima, but I don’t understand what you mean,” Uehara admitted. “That _could_ suggest that someone entered the wine cellar, but even if someone did, what could that have to do with the crime scene?”

“Yeah! If there’s nothing suspicious there, then we’d may as well say that this lumbering bull found his way in there,” Sugita said. “So cough it up!”

“The rags that we found in the cellar didn’t just have wine or dirt on them…they also had **blood**.” This made a few of my classmates’ faces pale, especially Ebina’s. “Because no one here is obviously injured, this means that the wine cellar **must have something to do with the murder**!”

“The wine cellar?” Kajiwara looked to Ebina with confusion. “But Ebina, I was under the impression that you guarded the wine cellar all night! How did anyone sneak past you?”

“That’s a hard question to answer, Colonel Kajiwara!” Ebina looked like she wanted to cry. “T-Truthfully, I must confess… **I allowed someone to enter the wine cellar last night**!”

“What?!” I felt like screaming all of a sudden. “W-Why didn’t you tell us sooner?!”

“I did not wish to display my weakness as a sentry, but upon being pressed by my superior officer, I felt the need to confess my sins!” Ebina saluted Kajiwara, who looked confused if anything.

“Well?! Don’t keep us in suspense! My little heart can’t take it!” Shimizu cried. “Tell us who went in there!”

“I-It was…!”Ebina suddenly looked deeply apologetic, as if she were doing something out of line by telling us this truth. “The culprit…It was **Teshima**!”

I nearly died on the spot. “W-WHAT?!”

Everyone in the court room began chattering about this new development, but the only face that caught my attention was Shinozuka’s. I was expecting him to look smug or thoughtful about this, but instead all I could see was concern. _“What is that boy up to? Does he have some master plan in the works here…?”_

“Mr. Teshima, what were you doing in there…?” Erizawa wondered. “It was nice of you to consider getting us wine to go with dinner, but we really didn’t need any….”

“That’s not the point, Erizawa.” Igarashi smirked at me, a smirk that made me want to throw up under the compounded stress of the situation. “The point is, **we now have witness testimony linking Yuuta Teshima to the scene of the crime**.”

“That’s circumstantial at best!” Futabatei yelled. “He’s linked to the wine cellar, which contains elements that may or may not be linked to the crime scene. That doesn’t mean that he went anywhere near the _kitchen_ cellar!”

“But Teshima explained it to us himself.” Igarashi smiled and brought a pointer finger up to his face, almost as if he were giving himself a point for serenity in his accusation. “Because there was **blood** found in the wine cellar and no signs that it could have come from anywhere but the scene of the crime in the kitchen cellar, it’s only safe for us to assume that Teshima **inhabited both locations during the dinner service.** And if that’s true, then **he is our only suspect**.”

“It seems that your attempts to back out of the limelight have only further heightened our suspicions,” Kajiwara observed quietly, seeming unsure about this situation. “And yet…I have my doubts that you’re the one who committed this crime.”

“What?” This really seemed to take Shinozuka by surprise, but rather than looking entirely shocked, there was clearly some happiness in his expression. _“But he’s the one who just tried feeding me to the sharks! Why is he suddenly excited to hear someone start defending me?”_ I thought to myself. “Why’s that? Do you know anything that could clear him…?”

“Teshima, I don’t know anything about your alibi—nor do you know anything about mine. But allow me to tell you that I trust what you’ve been saying up to now. It wouldn’t befit a culprit to give away evidence that puts himself at the scene of the crime.”

“He’s obviously giving that information away because he was cornered by my coercive questioning and wanted to bend the truth to fit his story,” Igarashi argued. “He did it out of stupidity, not out of a want for understanding.”

“You can say what you would like about Yuuta Teshima, but he is not a stupid man. I have no doubt that if he _was_ the culprit, he would know better than to speak with Shinozuka concerning his alibi and possible guilt—and he certainly wouldn’t mention the wine cellar if he knew that it had anything to do with the crime scene. Very few people investigated that area, so he could have concealed the truth about it if he wanted. As such, it’s obvious to me that someone in this courtroom is attempting to frame him for their heinous crime.” Kajiwara glared at each individual in the courtroom, with the resulting expressions ranging from Nonaka choosing to glare back and Erizawa appearing as if he was about to vomit.

“C-Colonel Kajiwara, I don’t understand!” Ebina’s loud, desperate cry made everyone’s eyes turn to her. “Why would you **tell me to tell everyone that Mr. Teshima entered the wine cellar** if _you_ didn’t mean to frame him?!”

This made everyone in the room fall silent…all save for Monokuma, who started to laugh. “Oh, isn’t that hilarious! You can tell a dog to lie for you, but you can’t make her stop _yapping_ , can you, Kajiwara?!”

Kajiwara looked dumbstruck as Monokuma howled with laughter. “I…” she murmured. “…What are you talking about…?”

“Clearly it seems like you told Ebina to tell everyone that Teshima entered the wine cellar.” Nonaka looked betrayed, but he tried to hide part of his face under the guise of adjusting his glasses. “Which definitely means that you have something to hide _yourself_.”

“Yes…now that I think about it, I’m rather sure that Kajiwara doesn’t have an alibi, does she?” Fujita seemed like she was expecting the trial to go in this direction, as she began to smile when it looked like Kajiwara was being suspected. “She stayed in her room for some time, but she ‘snuck off’ at some point and was never seen again until we found the body. She’s been quite gung-ho about keeping an eagle eye over all of us and controlling our actions since we got here, so I wouldn’t find it preposterous to think that she bent her own guidelines in order to perpetrate a murder in which she could never be suspected. Am I striking gold, Kajiwara?”

“I see,” I muttered, feeling myself sink into disbelief. “Fujita, when you said that you suspected someone specific in this class, you….”

“Well, yes! Those who try to cage free birds such as I are always suspects in my book,” Fujita explained. “Not to mention, she’s awfully knowledgeable about the structure of these ‘class trials’ Monokuma likes to hype so much. Who better to exploit them to her own advantage?”

“Hey, you bunch of slimy jackals can fuck off! I can confirm Kaoru’s alibi.” Kajiwara was almost as shocked as I was when Sugita shouted from the other side of the courtroom—though I was almost too hung up on the use of Kajiwara’s first name to realize what she was saying. “We left to have a little talk outside after the coffee girl dragged everyone into the auditorium. And you know I’ve got no reason to lie, so you can’t say that I’m just doing this to save her ass!”

“Oh, dear…” Fujita didn’t seem pleased to see her accusations get buried under Sugita’s alibi. “I don’t think you’ll get away with this great disrespect, if I can help it.”

This ominous comment seemed to make everyone hush up. “So it seems that Kajiwara really had nothing to do with the wine cellar cover-up,” Uehara observed. “But if that’s the case, then why would Ebina lie about getting such instructions?”

“I think there’s a good reason for that,” I said. “Kajiwara touched on this earlier, but I think the reason why Ebina accused me of entering the wine cellar and told us that Kajiwara told her to say so is because **she’s a part of a conspiracy to frame me.** ”

“W-What?!” Ebina’s shrill, loud question was almost enough to burst my eardrums. “T-Teshima, I would never! W-What motive would I have to frame you?!”

“Well, let’s think about it like this.” I thought hard about what I was going to say next. “If _you_ had something to do with this crime, you’d want to blame it on someone else, naturally. But if you decided to frame _me_ instead of someone in the kitchen staff like Erizawa or Futabatei, then you—or the person who convinced you to lie—have some **secret information about my alibi** that no one but me and a few other people should know. To any outsider, it looks impossible that I could have committed the crime since I was running between a lot of people and keeping busy the entire time while the murder was being committed. But if you **knew that I had Futabatei’s secret** , then that would give you a good opportunity to frame me since that would give me the means to commit the murder. So from that, I think it’s pretty clear that this isn’t a concentrated effort on _your_ part to frame me…Someone who **knows whose secret I have** told you to give us that information. They could have claimed that Kajiwara told them to tell you that so that you would be more likely to give us that information under the directions of your superior officer.” After going through all of the information aloud, I looked to Ebina to see that she was a ghostly shade of white. “So, what do you have to say to that?”

Suddenly, she appeared close to tears. “I…!”

“Ebina, I’m appalled at you,” Kajiwara remarked, frowning heavily at the officer. “Why would you guess that I would have you frame someone for this crime? And even if I _did_ instruct you to lie for me, why wouldn’t your morals stop you from telling my lies?”

“C-Colonel! Teshima has it all wrong! I would never dream of lying to our classmates!” Ebina screeched, saluting so hard that I thought she might break the goggles on her face. “All of your arguments are **circumstantial at best**! Can you give me **specific proof that I have inside information on the crime**!?”

_“That’s an easy one. She’s already really close to breaking down….”_ “Ebina, I remember you saying something really strange when we ran into you after hearing the corpse announcement…You told us right away that **the body was in the cellar.** If you didn’t move all night, then you shouldn’t have had any way of knowing where the body was. Not only that, but when we asked you if you knew what had happened, you answered that **Hano was bludgeoned with a wine bottle**. That being said, I have three questions for you; if you aren’t a part of a conspiracy to frame me, then **why did you know the location of the body and Hano’s cause of death**? And if you were really guarding the wine cellar all night, then **how could Hano have been bludgeoned with a wine bottle like you claim?”**

Ebina cried out so loudly that I thought a plane could have been lifting off somewhere nearby. “THERE’S A VERY SIMPLE EXPLANATION FOR THOSE THINGS…!” she screamed.

“What do you mean, you jerk liar?” Ootomo questioned, sounding unusually rude all of a sudden. “There isn’t **one thing** that can make you look less suspicious right now. It’s useless!”

_“But wait…Let’s assume that she’s right in saying that she **let one person into the wine cellar tonight**. Based on the evidence we found in there, it’s impossible to think that it was left alone. That being said, I think it’s pretty clear who went there first. But…why? I don’t understand why…” _ “Hano entered the wine cellar tonight, didn’t he?” I asked Ebina. “It makes too much sense…You thought that he was bludgeoned with a wine bottle because **you last saw him entering the wine cellar**.”

“But that doesn’t explain how she knew where Hano’s body was found,” Nonaka pointed out. “He didn’t just teleport from the wine cellar to the kitchen cellar so he could get murdered. And it’s pretty obvious that nobody moved the body into the kitchen cellar, either….”

As Nonaka spoke, all of the evidence started to come together to form one startling realization. The lock on the wine cellar door. The lack thereof on the kitchen cellar door. The evidence we found linking the wine cellar to the scene of the crime in the kitchen cellar….  “The two cellars are connected by a locked door,” I said aloud, sounding crazy as I did so. “It makes perfect sense…if Hano was the one to go into the wine cellar, then he could have travelled to the kitchen cellar and gotten killed. That’s why his body is at the awkward angle that we found it at. **He was moving in the direction of the kitchen and got killed on his way**. He fell backwards as a result of being hit by **someone who intercepted him from the cellar door**. Then, while the culprit was trying to hide their involvement in the crime, they **transferred evidence to the wine cellar** in the hopes that people wouldn’t realize they were connected and think to search there. Which also explains my third theory….”

“Really, don’t you think you’ve led everyone in circles long enough now?” Igarashi looked upset that I was going down such a rabbit hole. “It’s time to stop and admit your guilt already. There’s evidence piling against you, _Yuuta Teshima_ ….”

“Hano wasn’t actually killed by the flower vase we found at the scene of the crime,” I continued, ignoring Igarashi entirely. “If the culprit didn’t want us to know that the cellars were connected, then they would have taken a weapon similar to the wine bottle—the flower vase—from the kitchen and planted it there so that anyone reasonable could assume that **the wine cellar had nothing to do with the murder**. It would match the description of the murder weapon from the Monokuma File, too; a **blunt, glass object** could be a flower vase as well as a wine bottle.”

“But there wasn’t any wine found at the crime scene,” Igarashi argued, “and a wine bottle would surely break if someone were struck on the head with it!”

“You could easily say the same thing about a flower vase. But no, the culprit knew that the bottle stood a chance to break.” I smirked as I recalled all of the evidence we found in the wine cellar. “The culprit went to great lengths to construct the murder weapon. They needed an empty wine bottle, so they took one bottle of wine and poured the wine out onto the floor. Then, to hide the wine they poured out, they intentionally broke another wine bottle on top of the preexisting mess to make it look like the broken bottle was the cause of the large wine spill that we found in the cellar—because when there’s that much wine on the floor, it’s almost impossible to tell how many bottles could have been involved in the spill. Then, the culprit filled their empty bottle with rags to prevent it from breaking when they struck Hano with it.”

“Of course! It’s just like the glass objects you buy at conventions!” Mitsukuri exclaimed. “They fill them with paper or tissues so they won’t break!”

“Exactly. That’s why we found a pile of rags with wine residue on them at the end of the cellar near the door,” I explained. “Then, to hide their crime after the deed was done, they wiped the blood off of the murder weapon with one of the rags, hid it beneath the other rags, and put the empty bottle back in its cubby hoping that it would blend in with the others.”

“I see! It makes perfect sense, Teshin!” Shimizu cheered. “Good job! Good job! Shish-boom-bah! I’m gonna give you a big hoo-rah!”

“But there’s a big issue with his logic, isn’t there?” Erizawa looked unsure of himself. “How would the culprit have gotten into the wine cellar if Mr. Hano was the only one to go in there all night?”

“Easy. They unlocked the door leading into the wine cellar from the kitchen cellar.”

“No, there wasn’t a lock on the kitchen cellar door to unlock before the crime happened,” Erizawa argued. “They couldn’t unlock the door from that side. So there’s no way that the culprit could have prepared that weapon in the wine cellar unless Miss Ebina let someone other than Mr. Hano inside.”

“I did no such thing!” She yelled. “I would never dream of lying to this court!”

“You mean like you did earlier?” Ootomo asked crudely. “ _Okay_ , then.”

Ebina gaped at the little girl. “What’s that tone supposed to mean, Ootomo?!”

“It’s supposed to mean that _you’re_ the one who went into the wine cellar, prepared the weapon, and unlocked the door!” Ootomo accused. “You said that you stood sentry all night, but there’s no one here who can confirm that for you! So you could have easily snuck in to do all of that stuff _yourself_!”

“NO!” It looked like Uehara might faint when Ebina yelled again. “That would be a great abuse of my position! I would never!!”

“Sure you would! You lied to us about Kajiwara earlier, didn’t you? And you lied about who went into the cellar and everything else! You’re just digging yourself into a deeper hole!” Ootomo yelled. “So just admit it, you selfish jerk! You killed Haruki so that you could go make love to one of your airplanes!”

“W-What?! I would never dream of doing something so inappropriate with an airplane! You’re just spouting heresy now!” Ebina’s face turned white. “Stop this at once!”

“No! I’m not gonna stop until _you confess_ , you dumb cow!” Ootomo argued. “Don’t you know? Nobody’s going to want to marry you if you’re a backstabbing liar!”

“B-But, I never wanted to get married in the first place...!” Ebina wailed.

“That’s enough!” I forced the girls to stop before the screaming could make my eyeballs pop out of my head. “Ebina, I don’t think you had anything directly to do with this. You’re saying too many ‘oblivious’ things to have been involved like that.”

“Huh? Really? Okay, then...whatever you say, Yuuta.” Ootomo shrugged her shoulders, seeming disappointed.

“I-It took _that_ little for you to give up?!” Shimizu questioned incredulously.

 “I…think we need to flip our way of thinking. It’s pretty clear that Hano was the one to enter the wine cellar—otherwise, he wouldn’t have had a way to get into the kitchen cellar. So that means….” The evidence continued falling into place as Igarashi glared in my direction until I gasped. “Hano wasn’t intending to become a victim tonight.”

“Obviously. Who _would_?” Igarashi scoffed. “You’re just grasping at straws now….”

“No, you don’t get it. He wasn’t intending to become a victim because **he was intending to become a culprit**. He went into the wine cellar so he could prepare the murder weapon. **He was going to kill someone in the kitchen staff**.”


	11. Chapter 1 - Class Trial (Chapter 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuta Teshima and his classmates fight for their lives in a class trial as they try to discover who killed their beloved classmate.

This accusation made Erizawa and Futabatei cry out. “Y-Yuu, you can’t be serious!” Futabatei wailed. “T-That’s terrifying! Why would he try to kill one of us?!”

I considered this myself for a long time. _“By all accounts, Hano was a good guy…past the usual teasing and mean comments, obviously. So why_ would _he try to kill someone? Unless…_ ” Monokuma’s motive came to mind, along with all of the secrets we’d learned recently. _“Wait…do we know Hano’s secret? And do we know whose_ he _had….?”_ After referencing this with Futabatei’s psychological profile, a picture of Hano’s behavior came into my mind. A boy who had a lot to hide—so much that even Futabatei couldn’t unravel the secrets of his mind—so desperate to keep his secrets that he would try to kill whoever had his secret. I could imagine it clearly in my head suddenly—an unhinged, twitchy Hano who thought that this was his only option. _“Of course…that must be the truth of the situation!”_

“If I had to guess, it’s probably because someone in the kitchen **knew something about him that he didn’t want anyone else to know** ,” I theorized aloud. “We don’t know who had Hano’s secret, if you remember. He was a very **secretive, shielded** person—he hated when other people tried to get close to him. So when he learned that someone random in the class suddenly had his secret, he was **terrified**. He thought to do whatever he could to **eliminate them** before they could tell everyone what they'd read about him.”

“Dat’s crazy! You think lil’ Hano could think’a doin’ a thing like dat?!” Tajima questioned incredulously.

“That’s the only conclusion I can come to based on Futabatei’s psychological profile.” I turned to Futabatei to exchange a smile with her, but she seemed troubled by the information I gave her. “That means that **whoever has Hano’s secret is probably his killer**. If I had to guess, then they must have run into him in the kitchen cellar, gotten into a fight with him, and killed him with his own murder weapon. Then they would’ve had to spend the rest of the night hiding their crime by going between the kitchen cellar and the wine cellar before Ootomo and Uehara found the body.”

“But then, what about the person whose secret Hano had?” Mitsukuri wondered.

“Well, who else could _that_ be but Ebina?” Ebina looked like she wanted to scream again, but I interrupted her. “Ebina wasn’t going to let _anyone_ into the wine cellar if Kajiwara didn’t tell her to. That being the case, there’s no other reason why she would have let Hano through. He probably **blackmailed** her into letting him by.”

“But isn’t that really circumstantial? I mean, what are the chances that he _just so happened_ to have the secret of the person guarding the wine cellar to aid him in this specific venture?” Nonaka countered.

“What are the chances that someone would choose to guard the wine cellar at all?” I rebutted. “And the only person liable to do something like that _is_ Ebina, so he could have gotten in either way. Either he blackmailed Ebina—which he did—or he slipped in when no one was looking. The only difference would be the trail he left behind.”

“So Ebina, dear,” Fujita asked, giving the aviator a sensitive look, “is he telling the truth?”

It took Ebina a really long time to answer, but when she did, she was almost whispering. “Y-Yes…” she murmured. “I’m sorry to have lied to you all, but…my secret was too great! I couldn’t allow him to tell everyone! N-None of you would trust me ever again!”

“Then I guessing you’re not willing to _tell_ us that secret,” Mitsukuri muttered. “Darn. I was excited, too….”

“But returning to the topic at hand, I think it’s clear from Teshima’s reasoning that only a kitchen staffer could have easily committed this crime. And to my knowledge, only one kitchen staffer lacks an alibi….” Fujita gave a gentle, knowing smile to Igarashi. “Igarashi? Would you care to tell us who has your secret?”

Igarashi gaped around at the suspicious glares surrounding him. “Me? Surely you can’t be serious.”

“We _are_ serious,” Nonaka insisted, “and don’t call us Shirley.”

“I hate to say this, but it can’t be Igarashi,” I said, sighing internally. “He has my secret, not Hano’s.”

“Couldn’t you be covering for him?” Sugita questioned.

I shook my head. “Why would I? He's been trying to blame me for this murder all night.”

“I don’t know if you remember from earlier,” Shinozuka explained, “but Erizawa implied this morning that **he had Fujita’s secret**. So that means….”

I went down the list of people in the kitchen crew and came across a truth that I couldn’t believe. Ootomo and Uehara didn't enter the kitchen until the end of the night. Igarashi had my secret. Erizawa had Fujita's secret. That only left... _“No…”_ I thought, shaking my head. _“No, there’s no way that that can be true…She’s been way too helpful, but….”_

“You shouldn’t just stand there shaking your head. We both know **the truth** behind this case now.” Something about the tiny frown on Shinozuka's face made my stomach turn over. “ **It was Futabatei** , don’t you think?”

“What?” Futabatei seemed more hurt by this accusation rather than shocked or appalled. “I-I don’t understand.”

“No, there’s no way,” I said, shaking my head. “She…she’s been way too compliant in our investigation. She can’t be the culprit. Why would she—?”

“Well, you have to admit…It’s looking pretty likely.” Shinozuka looked at Futabatei as she despaired in her spot with a forlorn expression. “She was **in the kitchen when the murder happened**. **We don’t know whose secret she had**. And don’t you remember how eager she was to pin everything on me in the wine cellar? It makes sense, if you think about it.”

"But it can't be true! Futabatei's secret!" I struggled to stand my ground in Futabatei's place as Shinozuka frowned at me and Igarashi smiled off into the distance. "We remember Hano's talent, don't we? He was the **Super High School Level Florist** , and we know from the job he picked for the dinner tonight that **he was handling flowers before he was killed**. And that means that **Futabatei couldn't have touched him**. That's because...she, um..." I felt nervous telling Futabatei’s secret in front of everyone, Futabatei included, but I forced myself to tell the truth. “She has a really bad allergy to flowers. She’ll break out into hives if she gets anywhere near them."

“Yep! That’s Chou Futabatei’s ultimate secret, alright!” Monokuma exclaimed. “This bitch’ll die if you throw her in a meadow! Upupupupu!”

“Do you always have to be so unpleasant and mean…?” Futabatei asked, frowning.

“You see?  Therein lies the contradiction—Chou couldn’t have handled the murder weapon. If she touched the same wine bottle that Hano did in order to kill him, then her hands should be covered in **hives**.” Igarashi closed his eyes and smiled, bowing to us. “So then, she couldn’t have handled the weapon. As such, we need to divert our attention elsewhere.”

“But she’s wearing gloves,” Shinozuka pointed out.

“Those are the gloves she wears when she’s preparing coffee,” Igarashi said. “Erizawa asked her throughout the night if she could watch the main dish when I would shoo him out of the kitchen. In those moments, she **took her gloves off**. We can say with some confidence that there’s about a **50% chance that she had her gloves off when the murder occurred**. If she wasn’t wearing the gloves, then there would certainly be hives on her hands.”

“Then shouldn’t she take her gloves off? Whether she had them on at the time or not, she’s definitely wearing them now.” When Shinozuka mentioned them, Futabatei started pawing at them uncomfortably. “So if she takes them off and we see hives, then we can prove that she touched the murder weapon. And anyway, she finished making her coffee a long time ago—why would she still be wearing the gloves now unless she was trying to hide something?”

“I forgot I was wearing them…” Futabatei muttered, seeming lost in thought suddenly. “I do it all the time. They’re very comfortable, you see….”

Something seemed to bother Igarashi briefly. “Toshi, why are you contradicting me? I thought….”

“Igarashi…I hate to say it, but Shinozuka is telling the truth. What he’s saying is all right—according to the evidence and all of the information we know, it’s really likely that Futabatei could have done it.  I think…” It took all of the confidence and nerve in my body to continue speaking. “…I think Futabatei should take her gloves off.”

“Yuu, no,” Futabatei murmured, though she didn’t seem overly distressed. “I don’t think you’ll like what you see.”

“We need to see anyway,” Kajiwara insisted. “Futabatei, if you would kindly….”

“Wait, are we really at the part where the culprit gets revealed?!” Shimizu cried. “Gasp! I wasn’t sure we’d make it this far!”

“I have to admit…I’m not very happy with this outcome,” Uehara said in a mumble. “Futabatei is a treasured friend and ally. I really wouldn’t like to believe that she could have committed such a hideous crime….”

“She didn’t,” Igarashi insisted, growling. “Chou, stop. There’s no need to bend to their will. There’s still a lot of evidence pointing to Teshima.” He extended a hand toward Futabatei as she started to slip off one of her gloves. “If Futabatei was going to commit this crime, she would have needed to be **alone** in the kitchen. And if she was alone in the kitchen, then Yuuta Teshima could have entered the kitchen, blackmailed her with her secret, and entered the cellar to commit the murder.”

“But I just proved that I would have no motive to kill Hano,” I refuted. “I revealed Futabatei’s secret—and Monokuma verified it. Why would I kill him otherwise?”

This statement seriously seemed to anger Igarashi for some reason. “Because _you, Yuuta Teshima_ , are the most evil, villainous person in this class!” He suddenly yelled, pointing his finger at me. “You’re a despair-ridden, parasitic beast bent on making every student in this class your host! You’re a plague on all of us! A malady to mankind! You would kill Hano, the innocent gardener, in order to perpetuate our suffering and further your own selfish agenda of misanthropy and despair!”

“Innocent my ass! He tried to kill someone tonight! We’ve already proved that much here!” I rebutted. “He went to all of the effort of making his own murder weapon and picking the lock in the wine cellar in order to sneak into the kitchen cellar and kill whoever had his secret!”

“You scourge upon mankind! You sprang from the loins of despair to destroy humanity once again by serving your evil prophecy! I will expose your evil to this class today! You will not take our lives in this courtroom!”

“Is this sort of crazy rambling why you _framed me_ for this crime?! It’s obvious that the culprit, whether it was me or Futabatei or anyone else, couldn’t have set up the crime scene since we were at the coffee social. That means that it could have only been **you, who has no alibi for that time** and has been blaming me for this crime since we entered the court room!”

“Enough! Stop!” Everyone jumped when Futabatei suddenly interrupted our conversation, but I was surprised to see that her initial dazed expression subsided into a gentle glare at Igarashi. “You dishonest scum. I can’t believe you would try to pin this crime on Yuu. He’s innocent in all of this, you disgusting excuse for a human. You’re just as bad as Hano was.”

“Just as bad as Haruki? But wasn’t Haruki cute and squishy?” Ootomo questioned.

“I would almost argue that, based on the expertise of his intended crime’s execution,” Kajiwara reasoned, “he **planned this night far in advance** , or, more ominously, has **done something like this before**. I assume his secret was something to that effect.”

“Does ‘ **Haruki Hano is one of the top ranking professional hitmen in the country’** happen to cotton with that?” There was something hollow and self-depreciating about Futabatei’s tone. “Because that’s what his secret was.”

Shimizu's eyes were almost as big as dinner plates. “F-Futa-chi?”

“Which I guess makes me, by default, the **culprit**. Doesn’t it?” Futabatei gave a sad smile as she slipped her white gloves off to release a trove of ugly red hives on her hands. “But I wasn’t about to lie about it. Dishonesty is ugly.”

“Chou, I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Igarashi said. “I thought you wanted to get away with the crime.”

“I did…but I didn’t want to lie to my friends in the process. And I _certainly_ didn’t want you to frame Yuu.” She gave a pointed glare to Igarashi.

“When I took control of the crime scene from you to cover your tracks, it was to be assumed that I would remove evidence that would put the blame on you and use it to implicate someone else. Was that not clear?” Igarashi seemed irritated by Futabatei’s attitude. “You should be thankful. I think you would have gotten away with it if you hadn’t tried to defend Yuu during the trial.”

 _“W-What did he just call me…!?”_ I thought.

“That’s not what you said,” Futabatei countered. “You’re completely misremembering what happened.”

“Wait, wait, I don’ really understand what’s goin’ on here anymore,” Tajima cried, holding his head. “What happened?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a long story. I suppose I can explain so everyone can understand.” Futabatei sighed, though there wasn’t anything overly despairing in her expression.

_8:00 AM—ten hours before Hano’s death_

_"You're not gonna tell anyone about that secret you just got. Get it? Got it? Good. Because I'll cave your skull in if I hear the word 'hitman' leave your lips while we're here. That brain you like to throw around will be leaking out of your head by the time I'm done with you. It’ll be just like you spilled a cup of coffee. Dark, sticky, and aaaall over the floor. And you know that they won’t catch me for it. You’d be damning everybody to Monokuma’s punishment, whatever it is."_

_I couldn't comprehend how such a small, innocuous-looking boy could say such horrible things with such a sadistic smile on his face._

_I knew that there was something different about Hano compared to everyone else—I found that out when I made my profiles for everyone—but he was more horrible than I ever could have imagined. A hitman? One of the best hitman in Japan, even? What was he doing in a place like this among students? Who let him into Hope’s Peak with a record like that?_

_I told him in the moment that I wouldn't tell anyone, but even with how good a liar I am, I knew he could see right through me. He let it go then, but I knew there would be retaliation. All I had to do was take Igarashi's advice, in that case. If I exposed him the next time everyone was together, then they would know who was responsible for my death. I'm sorry that I was so curt and rude when we spoke after that, Yuu. I just wanted to make sure that he couldn't wring anything serious out of you if killing me wasn't his main goal. Compared to his secret, I didn't think my flower allergy would be as important. But in the end, it looks like my secret's killed me just like his did._

_When Kajiwara announced dinner later that night, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to let everyone know what Hano was hiding. At first I thought about avoiding the kitchen staff so it would be harder for Hano to track me down, but I decided that I didn't want anyone else in class to get hurt for me. If Hano was really going to try killing me, I wanted to be the one to confront him. I would never be able to forgive myself if someone else got killed in my place. So I intentionally made every effort I could to end up in the kitchen alone. I convinced Erizawa that I could watch over the main course while he attended to Ootomo and the dining room. I intentionally took a long time with my coffee while I waited for Igarashi to leave the kitchen for a minute. When he did, I had a funny feeling that I knew where Hano would be. So I opened the door to the kitchen cellar as I attended to Erizawa's food._

_Like I expected, Hano was there with a wine bottle. It was pretty obvious to me from our first investigation of the building that the cellars were connected in some way and I guess I expected that Hano could have lockpicked the door, considering his criminal background. But I didn't intend to go down without a fight._

_I didn't want to kill him. All I wanted to do was knock him out and get help from Igarashi. But when I knocked him in the head with the bottle I wrenched from his hands, he fell onto the ground and started bleeding. His eyes were stuck open. As hard as I tried, he never got up._

_I was in a hurry to get away from the body, so I dropped the bottle and ran. That's when I bumped into Igarashi. "I know what you did," were the first words out of his mouth. My life flashed before my eyes when he said that._

_"How do you know?" was my immediate question._

_"This was bound to happen the moment they put Hano in our class." Igarashi sauntered past me and opened the door to the kitchen cellar. He shook his head when he saw the body. "I knew that something like this was going to happen tonight. It’s probably what_ they _were expecting, as well. It's a tragedy, but you didn't make him suffer, at least. And I'm sure he deserved it, correct? 'Haruki Hano is the best hitman in the northern part of Japan' and all. I don't doubt that you had his secret."_

_"What do I do? I can't just go out there and tell everyone that I killed Hano. There'll be one of those class trials Monokuma mentioned, and then—"_

_"Leave it to me." I was unnerved by the paternal smile on Igarashi's face. "I can take care of this. Don't worry, Chou. I will ensure that our hope will survive to see the end of this game."_

_"But why...why are you helping me? Shouldn't you be screaming and telling everyone that I'm a murderer? I haven't even tried to deny it...."_

_"That's not my intention. I see this as an opportunity to bring our class to peace. Just make your coffee and pretend that nothing's happened. I'll take care of everything from here. If I can help it, you’re going to live through the night." Igarashi looked at me with something knowing in his eyes before going into the kitchen cellar. He closed the door after him, leaving me alone in the kitchen with my coffee machine, my gloves lying nearby, and Erizawa's food sitting on the burner. I moved to fix Erizawa's food, but my hands hurt when I touched the handle. I pulled them back._

_My palms were covered with hives, the sort I'd get covered with whenever I touched flowers. Damn, I thought. Even if Igarashi frames this murder perfectly, they'll find out immediately that I touched Hano's gloves or, God forbid, the weapon he tried to attack me with. But my gloves looked fairly thick and no one would question why I was wearing them if they saw me with them after dinner. I always wear them when I prepare my coffee, after all. I could say that I forgot to take them off or that I don't want to lose them. They wouldn't see the hives underneath or know that I shooed Erizawa out of the kitchen. I was just making coffee the entire time while the murder happened in the next room. It made perfect sense._

_Erizawa returned not long after to check up on his food. The timer I set for the coffee beeped in no time. I took it off the heat and prepared everyone's cups for the social._

_I was more than capable of pretending that nothing happened. Because really, nothing did. I may have killed Hano, but it was an accident at worst. He was a hitman who was trying to take my life. It wasn't as if I was lying to everyone and trying to cover my tracks, so I couldn't feel guilty when I shared coffee with all of you. I'm the culprit, but I'm not the 'mastermind' behind this crime. Igarashi is the liar who brought us all to this point. I would have been caught unrepentantly in an instant if not for his meddling. So I apologize for committing the initial crime, but the person who has put you through such turmoil tonight was him, not me. I'm just sorry that my careless action caused you all so much stress._

 “So what you’re telling us is, this guy has been leading us all in circles giving us false information so we wouldn’t suspect you?” Sugita spat. “He didn’t actually shoo Erizawa out of the kitchen or any of that bullshit?”

“Oh, I understand now! So when Igarashi approached me telling me that Kajiwara wanted me to tell everyone that Teshima entered the wine cellar, it was because Igarashi wanted me to aid in framing Teshima!” Even though there was new enlightenment on Ebina’s face, there were tears streaming down her face. “I’ll never forgive myself for being manipulated so!”

“If Igarashi was the one who told you to do that, then why didn’t you say anything in the first place?!” Nonaka questioned.

“Yes, you all have a right to be upset. I’m the one who shooed Erizawa out of the kitchen so he would be out of the line of fire. I’m impressed that Igarashi came up with an alibi for that aspect of the crime so quickly, but his dishonesty wasn’t appreciated by me.” Futabatei sneered in Igarashi’s direction, but instead of seeming upset by this reveal, he instead seemed irritated.

“I don’t understand what you _expected_ me to do when I said I would cover your tracks,” he muttered, crossing his arms. “If you really wanted to get away with it, then you would have caught onto the abundant evidence suggesting Yuu’s guilt and helped to convict him. Instead, you jumped to his rescue at every turn today. Was it not obvious that he was the one being framed?”

“Well, if _he_ was being framed, then why did you have Shinozuka act so suspiciously?” Futabatei countered, clearly getting annoyed as well.

Shinozuka looked doe-eyed and innocent. “W-What? Me?”

“I’m sorry? I did no such thing. I would never dream of framing him,” Igarashi argued. “Toshi is, by nature, a very…suspicious-looking person. When he was born, he was stricken with a bout of bad luck that will no-doubt follow him to his death. As a result of this, he has a bad tendency to turn up in the wrong place at the wrong time and make fatal mistakes.”

“Wait, where are you getting all of _this_ from…?” Shinozuka wondered. “Do you remember these things from our days at Hope’s Peak?”

“I told Toshi what happened today in the hopes that he could distance himself from the crime and carry himself to safety if things began to spiral in a direction that might implicate him for the crime. You mustn’t hold it against him, but he knew from the start who the culprit was, who helped her prepare the scene of the crime, and who her accomplice was attempting to frame.”

“You knew all of those things and you didn’t tell us…?” Erizawa asked, looking betrayed. “Mr. Shinozuka, I don’t understand…we’ve been nothing but kind and hospitable to you, have we not…?”

“It’s not that,” I interrupted. “Shinozuka is the kind of person who would do anything for anyone if it meant that they would give him some attention. He feels like no one would remember he exists if he didn’t do whatever they told him to do.”

“T-That kind of hurts my feelings, Teshima,” Shinozuka admitted with a strained smile, “but I guess it’s okay. You probably just got that from Futabatei, anyway. But that’s not why I decided to keep Igarashi’s secret. This might sound silly to you guys, but…I’m certain that Igarashi and I shared some kind of **special bond** before we came here. So when he asked me for help, I agreed. Because I'm convinced…I’m convinced that we're **tied together by fate**! And that means that, no matter what, I need to stay close to Igarashi. So even if we're friends, Teshima, I can't just ignore a call from fate like that. That's historically been a recipe for disaster."

“See? It’s just as I told you, Yuu.” There was nothing but spite in Futabatei’s voice. “Toshi Shinozuka is a boy prone to betrayals. He would betray you over and over again if he knew that it would continue to draw attention from others. I knew that we couldn’t trust him. He’s made an alliance with the boy who tried to frame you tonight—an alliance based on fate, destiny, and other such nonsense.”

“B-But, Futabatei…” I couldn’t begin to fathom the words coming out of my mouth. “He’s not the one who betrayed us. It was **you**.”

This drove a stake into her heart. “…What?”

“You’re the one who let Igarashi cover up your crime. If not for him, then none of the rest of us would have been at risk of punishment tonight,” I pointed out. “And _you’re_ the one who tried to pick a fight with Hano rather than telling anyone about what you were going through. Futabatei, I…” Before I could realize it, my heart was in knots. “I could have helped you if you’d said something. You didn’t have to face this alone. And for you to do that sort of thing after telling us that we could all survive if we came together as a class… **you betrayed our trust**.”

“I didn’t want you to get hurt, Yuu. You didn’t deserve it. I’m not good enough to deserve any sacrifice from you. Isn’t that right? Because in the end, all I am is a murderer. I’m a murderer, a liar, and a cheat….” Futabatei looked down at her feet, a desolate smile on her face.

“Hm, are you done whining about yourself now? I guess that’ll be it, then! Now comes my favorite part.” Monokuma grinned at us. “If you’re sure you’re sure that you know who the culprit is, then let the poll begin! Will you choose correctly, or will you be oh-so wrong? Let's see!"

A selection pad rose from my podium, displaying all of my classmates—even Hano, for a reason I couldn’t fathom—in pixel form and a big red button reading ‘GUILTY’ at the bottom of the screen. With some hesitance, I selected Futabatei’s picture and watched as she zoomed to the middle of the screen under a spotlight that made the other pixels grow shaded behind her. There were only two options below her; the still-remaining ‘GUILTY’ and a ‘BACK’ button. It took a moment to hype myself up to it, but I forced my finger onto the guilty button and pressed without much confidence. All at once, the spotlight illuminating Futabatei’s pixel icon became red and a hole opened up beneath it, causing it to tumble into what seemed to be a pit of fire. I flinched at the sight, but became even more concerned when I looked up and realized that everyone else was growing close to concluding their vote.

Finally, when the last vote was submitted, Monokuma looked at a panel beside him. “Well, it looks like a near unanimous vote for Chou Futabatei! Though there _was_ one vote each for Shinobu Ebina and Yuuta Teshima.”

“Me?! But why?!” Ebina screamed.

“You’re the reason any of this happened in the first place, you stupid jerk!” We were all shocked when Ootomo was the one to yell in reply to her. “If you hadn’t let Haruki into the wine cellar, then he wouldn’t have been killed! It’s all your fault!”

“B-B-But, he had my secret! He b-blackmailed me! I had no choice…!” Ebina looked close to tears.

 “What secret could be so terrible that you’d let Haruki get murdered over it, you selfish cow?!” Ootomo continued—it looked like Uehara wanted to interrupt her and convince her to stop, but he couldn’t get in a word edgewise. “Now because of you, an innocent boy is dead!”

“I-Innocent?! He threatened to tarnish my reputation! H-He tried to kill Futabatei--a-and if not her, he said it would be me!” Ebina wailed. “I-I had no choice…!”

“You think that’s an excuse? Everybody has a secret to hide! The only difference is that you were stupid enough to let it get to you!” Ootomo argued. “I’ll never forgive you for this! Haruki is dead because of you! Even if Futabatei is the murderer, _you’re_ his real killer!”

“I-I…!” Ebina looked like she was on the verge of a breakdown.

“I hope you’re the next one to die,” Ootomo growled. “You’ll really deserve it then! I want you to die in the most awful, painful way possible!”

“Miss Ootomo, that’s no way to talk to a person!” Erizawa objected. “Stop this!”

“I’m just saying what’s on my mind, Hisoka.” We were all shocked when Ootomo’s tone was suddenly saccharine sweet again. “I’m sorry if it’s scary, but it’s the truth. We really would be better off without her.”

“And I can guess who voted for me….” When I turned to see Igarashi glaring at me, there was no doubt about it. “You didn’t expect to get a majority, did you?”

“Hell spawn….” Igarashi muttered under his breath, looking more like a hell spawn himself as he shuddered with rage behind his podium. “You’ll never get away with this injustice….”

“Enough of that.” Futabatei’s voice rung out hollow and yet acceptant. “I deserve whatever punishment Monokuma wishes to give to me, if it will make things better. No one else should suffer for my crime.”

Just when it looked like Monokuma was about to say something, Kajiwara interrupted him with an icy glare. “You bastard. Your treachery never ends.”

“Oh! What did I do now?! I just _love_ getting scolded by you, Kajiwara! Nothing makes me harder!” Monokuma was practically bouncing up and down in his throne.

“This was your plan from the beginning. By keeping the details of the culprit’s ‘punishment’ away from us, you were baiting the culprit into giving themselves away to make it easier on us.” Kajiwara looked like she was going to vomit. “Futabatei only revealed the truth today because she was under the impression that that would be the only way for the class to find peace. And instead, you’re—”

“It’s the _first trial,_ you dumb broad! Of course I couldn’t make it the murder mystery of the century— _especially_ if Igarashi was going to waste his time wiping his greasy mitts all over everything. Thanks to him, you idiots would have _never_ found the truth if not for my help!” Monokuma gave a disdainful look to Igarashi, who returned it with a venomous sneer. “Well, she wasn’t _wrong_. Isn’t that what I said earlier? The class _will_ be at peace after the culprit gets punished. It’ll just be a lot _quieter_ than she was expecting, probably.”

“Quieter? Why?” Sugita struggled to pull her knitting needles out of her satchel, but the struggle wasn’t as great when she remembered that Monokuma would probably be immune to them. “You aren’t planning on cutting her tongue out, are you?”

“Well, that _might_ be part of it…but that’s a surprise. Let’s let Igarashi explain things to us. I feel like he knows more about the standard procedure here than even _I_ do. Isn’t that right?” Monokuma raised an eyebrow at Igarashi, who was beginning to look somewhat shameful.

When it took him a while to speak up, Uehara spoke from the other side of the room. “Igarashi, please…I don’t mean to sound needy, but we would like to have our fears assuaged at least somewhat. Please tell us what Monokuma intends to do to Futabatei. We’re dependant on your word.”

Finally, after this appeal to his heart, Igarashi sighed and diverted his gaze from us. “Traditionally, the punishment for being caught in a class trial during a mutual killing game such as this is…death.”

“Death?!” Shimizu shrieked. “You can’t be serious!”

“Of course he’s serious! The punishment for taking someone’s life and being dumb enough to get caught should be **your own life**! That’s only fair, don’t you think?” Monokuma looked exceedingly proud of himself. “That being said, I have a **very special punishment** for Chou Futabatei, the Super High School Level Barista! Shall we proceed?”

“Wait! You can’t do this! She may have betrayed our trust, but that doesn’t mean that she deserves to die! We can forgive her!” I insisted. “If not for her honesty, who knows what would have happened to us? We can’t kill her now!”

Without offering me an argument, Monokuma cried, “Now, let’s give it everything we’ve got! It’s punishment time!” and pressed a big red button with a mallet. Futabatei turned to look at me; before anything could happen, we locked eyes again and I watched her mouth form two words that she wasn’t able to get out: ‘I’m sorry’.

Before I could react to this at all, a metal bracelet shot out from the wall beside Futabatei and grabbed her wrist. She reached for my hand in that instant, but I couldn’t catch her before she was dragged out of the courtroom through a door that swung open to our side. Suddenly, the large monitor overtop of Monokuma’s head changed from its usual display to show Futabatei lying on the ground of a diner-type setting, struggling to pick herself up. Once she was on her feet—albeit unsteadily—there was a deep fear in her eyes as she seemed to recognize the cafe setting she was in…along with the Monokumas sitting at the tables around her. She looked to her hand to find a list of what were presumably orders, but none of them were written in a language we could understand. The Monokuma customers looked as if they were getting increasingly frustrated with her, so the Monokuma working behind the front counter stomped over with a tray of coffees and shoved them into Futabatei’s hands.

Her legs wobbled as she attempted to make her way to the first customer, but before she could serve the coffee, a leg shot out from one of the tables to kick out her heel and send her falling backwards toward the floor. Even with her best efforts, Futabatei couldn’t save the coffees from crashing against the floor, creating a great brown stain that could have looked like blood in any other setting. Futabatei hurriedly tried to pick herself up, but when she set her hand against the coffee stain, she found that she could no longer move it. She squirmed and used the fullest extent of her strength in her attempts to escape the stain without trapping her only remaining hand, but nothing seemed to be working as the Monokumas stood up from their seats and approached the front desk so they could complain to the manager. We could all see the fear growing in Futabatei’s eyes and feel the rapid beat of her heart underneath her chest as the Monokumas collected their checks and returned to the spot where she lay, none looking very pleased with her work.

Suddenly, one of the Monokumas tossed a check her way that cut across her cheek and lodged in the ground beside her. Using her free hand, she plucked the check out of the ground and tried to read it.

The order was refunded—the customer refused to leave a tip.

Futabatei looked up again when she saw the other Monokumas preparing to lodge more checks without tips in her direction. A certain acceptance wiped over her face, but her panic was still evident as the checks whipped into her body and cut open her skin. I could hardly continue watching at this point, but due to Monokuma’s rules, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the scene as Futabatei was sliced by the checks and began to bleed out. Just as the manager Monokuma prepared to exact the final hit upon her neck to help her bleed out with an ominous-looking pink slip, the chandelier above her head began to wobble and shake. Almost in slow motion, she held up her hand in a desperate attempt to stop it.

But there was no hope left for her anymore. The Monokumas could hardly back up in time before it crashed to the ground in a great glassy explosion that left her body limp and bloodied.

There was no doubt as to whether Chou Futabatei was dead or not.

I couldn’t get rid of the nausea overtaking me even as I choked back tears and vomit. It was clear that I was the one most affected by this display, but nobody seemed immune from its despair…that is, except for Igarashi.

“Such is the way that things will continue,” Igarashi murmured in a near-trance, “if another member of this class chooses to give into Yuu’s despair.”

This made Mitsukuri feel the need to scream and start shaking. “F-Futabatei!”

 “M-Miss Mitsukuri…!” Erizawa exclaimed, unsure of what to do when she was so far away. 

"I-I can’t believe this….” There was something deeply troubled in Kajiwara’s tone. “The stories I heard about the despair in these games…they were all true.”

"How could you do such a psychotic thing?" Uehara asked Monokuma, clearly very shaken by what he'd seen. “Futabatei may have deserved justice, but what you did to her was…unforgiveable. What kind of animal could end a human life in such a grotesque way?”

"Well, apparently a bear could.” Monokuma shrugged, clearly giving little caring or thought to Uehara’s objections. "She wasn’t good enough—and she teamed up with Igarashi—so she got caught. What’s there to cry about?”

“Futachi was our friend! E-Even if she turned out to be the culprit…!” Shimizu cried. “I don’t forgive anyone who does something like that to our friends!”

"Hano was your friend, too, y'know," Monokuma pointed out. "Did you even _see_ the crime scene, kid? Is that what friends really do to each other? Maybe you should give that some thought after you tuck yourself into bed tonight.”

Shimizu didn't have an argument to rebut this, so we all subsided into a shocked and somber silence...that is, until Monokuma interjected again. “Whoa, seriously? It’s like somebody’s funeral or something! You bastards should be crying with relief since _your_ asses weren’t the ones in that café tonight!”

This made everyone become quiet again. “What do you mean by that …?” Fujita questioned meticulously.

“Oh, you didn’t tell them, Igarashi? Well go ahead, fill them in! Tell them how you intended to ‘bring them to peace’ tonight.” There was something disgustingly prideful in Monokuma’s expression.

Igarashi looked like he would rather swallow his foot, but he did as Monokuma said. “The penalty for failing in a class trial…is execution for every student save for the culprit,” he admitted quietly.

“What?!” Ebina screamed. “Our lives were just in danger?!”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Kajiwara snarled. “Don’t you understand? By trying to frame Teshima for this crime even despite this truth he knew, Igarashi was attempting to kill us all.”

“Igarashi?” When Shinozuka gave him a sad look, Igarashi averted his eyes. “Is that the truth?”

“…You don’t understand. This class has been at war with hope and peace for as long as I’ve known it,” Igarashi said slowly, refusing to look at anyone in the courtroom. “I’m beginning to fear that you all might become dangerous if you stay here for too long. If I were to eliminate those who could become vessels of despair one day, then there would be much less despair to spread in the world. I would have done it to anyone who I thought may be at risk of falling. It’s the only sane thing to do. The world wouldn’t be able to survive another Ultimate class of despair.”

“So the only sane option is our execution?” Fujita asked. “You must be insane.”

“I believe we’re at a ‘rehab center’ for a reason, Igarashi,” Uehara added tentatively.

“But this place is not conducive to a hopeful disposition. It’s been polluted by Monokuma’s despair,” Igarashi insisted. “As such, its effects have been reversed. We can only get worse while we stay here. As such, I was attempting to get us out of here as soon as possible—no matter what it took.”

Before anyone could argue any more, Monokuma yawned. “You know what? I’m totally beat! And it’s past all of your bedtimes, isn’t it? I think it’s by time we hit the hay! We’ve got a big day of murder and despair ahead of us tomorrow! Upupupupu!” 

Seeing no other choice in the face of Monokuma’s orders, we all filtered out of the courtroom and into the elevator, which felt a little emptier with Futabatei’s glaring absence. The instant the elevator rumbled to a stop at the balcony, I hurried back to my room without worrying about Shinozuka’s tugging at my sleeve. Whatever he had to say to me after all he did during the trial could wait until tomorrow—or until I was next on the chopping block, based on what he'd done.  

I got into my bed and sat there in the dark for a very long time, unable to shake the things that I'd been forced to witness out of my head. Hano and Futabatei...it was just like Shimizu said. Even if Hano was a hitman and Futabatei was the culprit we were seeking, they were both still our friends. And yet, both of them were dead after that night—one after a strike to the head and the other after a barrage of knife-like cuts and the crash of a chandelier.

I could still hear Futabatei’s voice vaguely in the back of my mind, saying imprecise things about psychology and dreams that I couldn’t put into words. The movement of her lips before she was whisked away repeated itself over and over in my mind; ‘I’m sorry’.

I had to accept her apology. Even if she lied to us, she couldn’t have known the consequences of that action. No, the person who really tried to kill us was Igarashi…and, maybe, Shinozuka, too. But why? I couldn’t understand why they would betray us like that. I knew that Igarashi didn’t like me, but he seemed to like everyone else in the class.

I was close to obsessing over these things even to my last conscious thought when the monitor over my doorway suddenly flickered to life. Barely comprehending what might be going on, I squinted my eyes at the screen and rubbed them when I didn’t come away with an image of a demonic teddy bear.

‘AKIRA WAS WRONG ABOUT YOU’

The intended message behind the simple wording was clear—these white words were the only ones displayed on the black background displayed on the monitor. But who was this from? Surely Monokuma wouldn’t display a message like this.

But I was too exhausted to give it any more thought. I was asleep before I knew it, barely keeping in mind what had happened barely thirty minutes ago.

CHAPTER 1—END; 14/16 ALIVE  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading through Chapter 1 of Hyper Danganronpa. Were you surprised by the victim and the culprit of this case? Was there anything that surprised you while you were reading? If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. I don't know if you need an AO3 account to comment, but if you already have one, then don't be shy! Please continue following the story so you don't miss Chapter 2, and I hope you have a very merry day!


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